The cult drama of Tibetan/Tantric Buddhism
consists in the constant taming of the feminine, the demoness. This is
heralded already in the language. The Tibetan verb dulwa has the following meanings: to tame, subjugate, conquer,
defeat; and sometimes: to kill, destroy; but also: to cultivate the land,
civilize a nation, convert to Buddhism, bring up, discipline. Violent
conquest and cultural activities thus form a unit for the Lamaist. The
chief task of the Tibetan monastic state consists in the taming of
wilderness (wild nature), the “heathen” barbarians, and the women. In
tantric terminology this corresponds with the method (upaya) with which the feminine wildness (Candali or Srinmo) is
defeated. Parallel to this, state Buddhism and social anarchy stand opposed
to one another as enemies since the beginning of Tibetan history — they
conduct their primordial struggle in the political, social, philosophical,
divine, and cosmic arenas. Even though they battle to the bitter end, they
are nonetheless — as we shall see — dependent upon one another.

The history of Buddhist state thought

The fundamental attitude of the
historical Buddha was anarchist. Not only did he leave his family behind,
the king’s son also laid aside all offices of state. With the founding of
the Buddhist community (the sangha),
he assumed that this was a purely spiritual union which was ethically far
superior to worldly institutions. The sangha
formed the basic pattern for an ideal society, whilst the secular state was
constantly receiving karmic stains through its worldly business. For this
reason the relationship between the two institutions (the sangha and the state) was always
tense and displayed many discordances which had arisen even earlier — in
the Vedic period — between kshatriyas
(warriors and kings) and brahmans
(priests).

However, the anti-state attitude of the
Buddhists changed in the third century B.C.E. with the seizure of power by
of the Emperor Ashoka (who ruled between 272–236 B.C.E.) Ashoka, a ruler
from the Maurya dynasty, had conquered almost the entire Indian
subcontinent following several terrible campaigns. He converted to Buddhism
and set great store by the distribution of the religion of Shakyamuni
throughout the whole country. In accordance with the teaching, he forbade
animal sacrifices and propagated the idea of vegetarianism.

His state-political status is not
entirely clear among the historians, then a number of contradictory
documents about this are extant. In one opinion he and the whole state
submitted to the rule of the sangha
(the monastic community) and he let his decisions be steered by them.
According to another document, he himself assumed leadership of the
community and became a sangharaja
(both king and supreme commander of the monastic community). The third view
is the most likely — that although he converted to the Buddhist faith he
retained his political autonomy and forced the monastic community to obey
his will as emperor. In favor if this view is the fact that it was he who
summoned a council and there forced through his “Buddhological” ideas.

Up until today the idea of the just
“king of peace” has been celebrated in the figure of Ashoka, and it has
been completely overlooked that he confronted the sangha with the problem of state power. The Buddhist monastic
community was originally completely non-coercive. Following its connection
with the state, the principle of nonviolence necessarily came into conflict
with the power political requirements this brought with it. For example,
the historical Buddha is said to have had such an aversion to the death
penalty that he offered himself as a substitute in order to save the life
of a criminal. Ashoka, however, who proclaimed an edict against the
slaughter of animals, did not renounce the execution of criminals by the
state.

Whether during his lifetime or first
due to later interpretations — the Emperor was (at any rate after his
demise) declared to be a Chakravartin
(world ruler) who held the “golden wheel” of the Dharma (the teaching) in his hands. He was the first historical
Bodhisattva king, that is, a Bodhisattva incarnated in the figure of a
worldly ruler. In him, worldly and spiritual power were united in one
person. Interestingly he established his spiritual world domination via a
kind of “cosmic sacrifice”. Legend tells how the Emperor came into
possession of the original Buddha relic and ordered this to be divided into
84,000 pieces and scattered throughout the entire universe. Wherever a
particle of this relic landed, his dominion spread, that is, everywhere,
since at that time in India 84,000 was a symbolic number for the cosmic
whole.[1] This pious account of his
universal sovereignty rendered him completely independent of the Buddhist sangha.

In the Mahayana Golden Shine Sutra, a few centuries after Ashoka, the
coercive power of the state is affirmed and presented as a doctrine of the
historical Buddha. With this the anarchic period of the Sangha was finally ended. By 200
C.E. at the latest, under the influence of Greco-Roman and Iranian ideas,
the Buddhist concept of kingship had developed into its fully autocratic
form which is referred to by historians as “Caesaropapism”. An example of
this is provided by King Kanishka from the Kushana dynasty (2nd century
C.E.) In him, the attributes of a worldly king and those of a Buddha were completely
fused with one another. Even the “coming” Buddha, Maitreya, and the reigning king formed a unit. The ruler had
become a savior. He was a contemporary
Bodhisattva and at the same time the appearance of the coming Buddhist messiah who had descended from heaven already
in this life so as to impart his message of salvation to the people.
(Kanishka cultivated a religious syncretism and also used other systems to
apotheosize his person and reign.)

The Dalai Lama and the Buddhist state are one

Tibet first became a centralized
ecclesiastical state with the Dalai Lama as its head in the year 1642. The
priest-king had the self-appointed right to exercise absolute power. He was
de jure not just lord over his human subjects but
likewise over the spirits and all other beings which lived “above and
beneath the world”. One of the first western visitors to the country, the
Briton S. Turner, described the institution as follows: “A sovereign Lama,
immaculate, immortal, omnipresent and omniscient is placed at the summit of
their fabric. [!] He is esteemed the vice regent of the only God, the
mediator between mortals and the Supreme ... He is also the center of all
civil government, which derives from his authority all influence and power”
(quoted by Bishop, 1993, p. 93).

Turner, who knew nothing about the
secrets of Tantrism, saw the Dalai Lama as a kind of bridge (pontifex maximus) between
transcendence and reality. He was for this author the governor for and the
image of Buddha, his majesty appeared as the pale earthly reflection of the
deity. This is, however, too modest! The Dalai Lama does not represent Buddha on earth, nor is he
an intermediary, nor a reflection — he is the complete deity himself. He is
a Kundun, that is, he is the
presence of Buddha, he is a “living Buddha”. For this reason his power and
his compassion are believed to be unbounded. He is world king and
Bodhisattva rolled into one.

The Dalai Lama unites spiritual and
worldly power in one person — a dream which remained unfulfilled for the
popes and emperors of the European Middle Ages. [2] According to doctrine,
the Kundun is the visible form (nirmanakaya) of this comprehensive
divine power in time; he exists as the earthly appearance of the time god, Kalachakra; he is the supreme “lord
of the wheel of time”. For this reason he was handed a golden wheel as a
sign of his omnipotence at his enthronement. He is prayed to as the “ruler
of rulers”, the “victor” and the “conqueror”. Even if he himself does not
wield the sword, he can still order others to do so, and oblige them to go
to war for him.

There was just as little distinction
between power-political and religious organization in the Tibet of old as
in the Egypt of the Pharaohs. As such, every action of the Tibetan
god-king, regardless of how mundane it may appear to us, was (and is)
religiously grounded and holy. The monastic state he governs was (and is)
considered to be the earthly reflection of a cosmic realm. In essence there
was (and is) no difference between the supernatural order and the social
order. The two vary only in their degree of perfection, then the ordo universalis (universal order)
which is apparent in this world is marred only by flaws due to the
imperfection of humanity (and not due to any imperfection of the Kundun). Anarchy, disorder, revolt,
famine, disobedience, defeat, expulsion are a matter of the deficiencies of
the age, but never incorrect conduct by the god-king. He is without blemish
and only present in this world in order to instruct people in the Dharma (the Buddhist doctrine).

The state as the
microcosmic body of the Dalai Lama

Ashoka, the first Buddhist Emperor, was
considered to be the incarnation of a Bodhisattva and probably as that of a
Chakravartin (world ruler). His
role as the highest bearer of state office was, however, not of a tantric
nature. Fundamentally, he acted like every sacred king before him. His
decisions, his edicts, and his deeds were considered holy — but he did not
govern via control of his inner microcosmic energies. The pre-tantric Chakravartin (e.g., Ashoka)
controlled the cosmos, but the tantric world ruler is (e.g., the Dalai
Lama) the cosmos itself. This equation of macrocosmic procedures and
microcosmic events within the mystic body of the tantric hierarch even
includes his people. The tantra master upon the Lion Throne does not just
represent his people, rather — to be precise — he is them. The oft-quoted phrase “I am the state” is literally
true of him.

He controls it — as we have described
above- through his inner breath, through the movement of the ten winds (dasakaro vasi). His two chief
metapolitical activities consist of the rite and the bodily control with
which he secretly steers the cosmos and his kingdom. The political, the
cultic, and his mystic physiology are inseparable for him. In his energy
body he plays out the events virtually, as in a computer, in order to then
allow them to become reality in the world of appearances.

The tantric Buddhocracy is thus an
interwoven total of cosmological, religious, territorial, administrative,
economic, and physiological events. Taking the doctrine literally, we must
thus assume that Tibet, with all its regions, mountains, valleys, rivers,
towns, villages, with its monasteries, civil servants, aristocrats,
traders, farmers, and herdsmen, with all its plants and animals can be
found anew in the energy body of the Dalai Lama. Such for us seemingly
fantastic concepts are not specifically Tibetan. We can also find them in
ancient Egypt, China, India, even in medieval Europe up until the
Enlightenment. Thus, when the Kundun
says in 1996 in an interview that “my proposal treats Tibet as something
like one human body. The whole Tibet is one body”, this is not just
intended allegorically and geopolitically, but also tantrically (Shambhala Sun, archives, November,
1996). Strictly interpreted, the statement also means: Tibet and my energy
body are identical with one another.

Tibet on the other hand is a
microcosmic likeness of the sum of humanity, at least that is how the
Tibetan National Assembly sees the matter in a letter from the year 1946.
We can read there that “there are many great nations on this earth who have
achieved unprecedented wealth and might, but there is only one nation which
is dedicated to the well-being of humanity and that is the religious land
of Tibet, which cherishes a joint spiritual and temporal system” (Newsgroup
12).

The mandala as the
organizational form of the Tibetan state

There is something specific in the
state structure of the historical Buddhocracy which distinguishes it from
the purely pyramidal constitution of Near Eastern theocracies. Alone
because of the many schools and sub-schools of Tibetan Buddhism we cannot
speak of a classic leadership pyramid at the pinnacle of which the Dalai
Lama stands. In order to describe in general terms the Buddhocratic form of
state, S. J. Tambiah introduced a term which has in the meantime become
widespread in the relevant literature. He calls it “galactic politics” or
“mandala politics” (Tambiah, 1976, pp. 112 ff.) What can be understood by
this?

As in a solar system, the chief
monasteries of the Land of Snows orbit like planets around the highest
incarnation of Tibet, the god-king and world ruler from Lhasa, and form
with him a living mandala. This planetary principle is repeated in the
organizational form of the chief monasteries, in the center of which a
tulku likewise rules as a “little” Chakravartin.
Here, each arch-abbot is the sun and father about whom rotate the so-called
“child monasteries”, that is, the monastic communities subordinate to him.
Under certain circumstances these can form a similar pattern with even
smaller units.

Mandala-pattern of the tibetan
government (above) and the corresponding government offices around the
Jokhang-Temple (below)

A collection of many “solar systems”
thus arises which together form a “galaxy”. Although the Dalai Lama
represents an overarching symbolic field, the individual monasteries still
have a wide ranging autonomy within their own planet. As a consequence,
every monastery, every temple, even every Tulku forms a miniature model of
the whole state. In this idealist conception they are all “little “ copies
of the universal Chakravartin
(wheel turner) and must also behave ideal-typically like him. All the
thoughts and deeds of the world ruler must be repeated by them and ideally
there should be no differences between him and them. Then all the planetary
units within the galactic model are in harmony with one another. In the
light of this idea, the frequent and substantial disagreements within the
Tibetan clergy appear all the more paradox.

Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, forms the
cosmic center of this galaxy. Two magnificent city buildings symbolize the
spiritual and worldly control of the Dalai Lama: The cathedral (the Jokhang temple) his priesthood; the palace (the Potala) his kingship.
The Fifth Dalai Lama ordered the construction of his residence on the “Red
Mountain” (Potala) from where the
Tibetan rulers of the Yarlung dynasty once reigned, but he did not live to
see its magnificent completion. Instead of laying a foundation stone, the
god-king had a stake driven into the soil of the “red mountain” and
summoned the wrathful deities, probably to demonstrate here too his power
over the earth mother, Srinmo,
whose nailed down heart beats beneath the Jokhang.

Significantly, a sanctuary in southern
India dedicated to Avalokiteshvara was
known in earlier times as a “Potala”. His Tibetan residence, which offers a
view over all of Lhasa, was a suitably high place for the “Lord who looks
down from above” (as the name of the Bodhisattva can be translated). The
Potala was also known as the “residence of the gods”.

Tibet is also
portrayed in the geometric form of a Mandala in the religious political
literature. „While it demonstrates hierarchy, power relations, and legal
levels”, writes Rebecca Redwood French, „the Mandala ceaselessly pulsates
with movement up, down and between its different parts” (Redwood French, 1995,
p. 179).

The mchod-yon relationship
to other countries

What form does the relationship of a Chakravartin from the roof of the
world to the rulers of other nations take in the Tibetan way of looking at
things? The Dalai Lama was (and is) — according to doctrine — the highest
(spiritual) instance for all the peoples of the globe. Their relationship
to him are traditionally regulated by what is known as the mchod-yon formula.

With an appeal to the historical
Buddha, the Tibetans interpret the mchod-yon
relation as follows:

The sacred monastic community (the sangha) is far superior to
secular ruler.

The secular ruler (the king) has the task,
indeed the duty, to afford the sangha
military protection and keep it alive with generous “alms”. In the mchod-yon relation “priest” and
“patron” thus stood (and stand) opposed, in that the patron was
obliged to fulfill all the worldly needs of the clergy.

After Buddhism became more and more
closely linked with the idea of the state following the Ashoka period, and
the “high priests” themselves became “patrons” (secular rulers), the mchod-yon relation was applied to
neighboring countries. That is, states which were not yet really subject to
the rule of the priest-king (e.g., of the Dalai Lama) had to grant him
military protection and “alms”. This delicate relation between the Lamaist
Buddhocracy and its neighboring states still plays a significant role in
Chinese-Tibetan politics today, since each of the parties interprets them
differently and thus also derives conflicting rights from it.

The Chinese side has for centuries been
of the opinion that the Buddhist church (and the Dalai Lama) must indeed be
paid for their religious activities with “alms”, but only has limited
rights in worldly matters. The Chinese (especially the communists) thus
impose a clear division between state and church and in this point are
largely in accord with western conceptions, or they with justification
appeal to the traditional Buddhist separation of sangha (the monastic community) and politics (Klieger, 1991, p.
24). In contrast, the Tibetans do not just lay claim to complete political
authority, they are also convinced that because of the mchod-yon relation the Chinese are downright obliged to support
them with “alms” and protect them with “weapons”. Even if such a claim is
not articulated in the current political situation it nonetheless remains
an essential characteristic of Tibetan Buddhocracy. [3]

Christiaan Klieger has convincingly
demonstrated that these days the entire exile Tibetan economy functions
according to the traditional mchod-yon
(priest-patron) principle described above, that is, the community with the
monks at its head is constantly supported by non-Tibetan institutions and
individuals from all over the world with cash, unpaid work, and gifts. The
Tibetan economic system has thus remained “medieval” in emigration as well.

Whether the considerable gifts to the
Tibetans in exile are originally intended for religious or humanitarian
projects no longer plays much of a role in their subsequent allocation. „Funds
generated in the West as part of the religious system of donations,” writes
Klieger, „are consequently transformed into political support for the
Tibetan state” (Klieger, 1991, p. 21). The formula, which proceeds from the connection
between spiritual and secular power, is accordingly as follows: whoever
supports the politics of the exile Tibetans also patronizes Buddhism as
such or, vice versa, whoever wants to foster Buddhism must support Tibetan
politics.

The feigned belief of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in western
democracy

However authoritarian and undemocratic
the guiding principles of the Buddhist state are, these days (and in total
contrast to this) the Fourteenth Dalai Lama exclusively professes a belief
in a western democratic model. Now, is the Kundun’s conception of democracy a matter of an seriously
intended reform of the old feudal Tibetan relations, a not yet realized
long-term political goal, or simply a tactical ploy?

Admittedly, since 1961 a kind of
parliament exists among the Tibetans in exile in which the representatives
of the various provinces and the four religious schools hold seats as
members. But the “god-king” still remains the highest government official.
According to the constitution, he cannot be stripped of his authority as
head of state and as the highest political
instance. There has never, Vice President Thubten Lungring has said, been a
majority decision against the Dalai Lama. The latter is said to have with a
smile answered a western journalist who asked him whether it was even
possible that resolutions could be passed against him, “No, not possible”
(Newsgroup 13).

Whenever he is asked about his
unshakable office, the Kundun
always repeats that this absolutist position of power was thrust upon him
against his express wishes. The people emphatically demanded of him that he
retain his role as regent for life. With regard to the charismatic power of
integration he is able to exercise, this was certainly a sensible political
decision. But this means that the exile Tibetan state system still remains
Buddhocratic at heart. Nonetheless, this does not prevent the Kundun from presenting the
constitution finally passed in 1963 as being “based upon the principles of
modern democracy”, nor from constantly demanding the separation of church
and state (Dalai Lama XIV, 1993b, p. 25; 1996b, p. 30).

In the course of its 35-year existence
the exile Tibetan “parliament” has proved itself to be purely cosmetic. It
was barely capable of functioning and played a completely subordinate role
in the political decision-making process. The “first ever democratic
political party in the history of Tibet” as it terms itself in its
political platform, the National
Democratic Party of Tibet (NDPT), first saw the light of day in the mid
nineties. Up until at least 1996 the “people” were completely uninterested
in the democratic rules of the game (Tibetan
Review, February 1990, p. 15). Politics was at best conducted by
various pressure groups — the divisive regional representations, the
militant Tibetan Youth Association
and the senior abbots of the four chief sects. But ultimately decisions
(still) lay in the hands of His Holiness, several executive bodies, and the
members of three families, of whom the most powerful is that of the Kundun, the so-called “Yabshi clan”.

The same is true of the freedom of the
press and freedom of speech in general. “The historian Wangpo Tethong,”
exiled Tibetan opponents of the Dalai Lama wrote in 1998, “whose noble
family has constantly occupied several posts in the government in exile,
equates democratization in exile with the ‘propagation of an ideology of
national unity’ and 'religious and political unification'. This contradicts
the western conception of democracy” (Press release of the Dorje Shugden
International Coalition, February 7, 1998; translation). The sole (!)
independent newspaper in Dharamsala, with the name of Democracy (in Tibetan: Mangtso),
was forced to cease publication under pressure from members of the
government in exile. In the Tibet
News, an article by Jamyang Norbu on the state of freedom of the press
is said to have appeared. The author summarizes his analysis as follows:
“Not only is there no encouragement or support for a free Tibetan press,
rather there is almost an extinguishing of the freedom of opinion in the
Tibetan exile community” (Press release of the Dorje Shugden International
Coalition, February, 7, 1998).

The Tibetan parliament in exile and the
democracy of the exiled Tibetans is a farce. Even Thubten J. Norbu, one of
the Dalai Lama’s brothers, is convinced of this. When in the early nineties
he clashed fiercely with Gyalo Thondop, another brother of the Kundun, over the question of foreign
affairs, the business of government was paralyzed due to this dispute
between the brothers (Tibetan Review,
September 1992, p. 7).The 11th
parliamentary assembly (1991), for instance, could not reach consensus over
the election of a full cabinet. The parliamentary members therefore
requested that His Holiness make the decision. The result was that of seven
ministers, two belonged to the “Yabshi clan”, that is, to the Kundun’s own family: Gyalo Thondop
was appointed chairman of the council of ministers and was also responsible
for the “security” department. The Dalai Lama’s sister, Jetsun Pema, was
entrusted with the ministry of education.

In future, everything is supposed to
change. Nepotism, corruption, undemocratic decisions, suppression of the
freedom of the press are no longer supposed to exist in the new Tibet. On
June 15, 1988, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama announced to the European
Parliament in Strasbourg that upon his return a constitutional assembly
would be formed in the Land of Snows, headed by a president who would
possess the same authority as he himself now enjoyed. Following this there
would be democratic elections. A separation of church and state along
western lines would be guaranteed from the outset in Tibet. There would
also be a voluntary relinquishment of some political authority vis-à-vis
the Chinese. He, the Dalai Lama, would recognize the diplomatic and military
supremacy of China and be content with just the „fields of religion,
commerce, education, culture, tourism, science, sports, and other
non-political activities” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 234).

But despite such spoken professions,
the national symbols tell another tale: With pride, every Tibetan in exile
explains that the two snow lions on the national flag signify the union of
spiritual and worldly power. The Tibetan flag is thus a visible
demonstration of the Tibetan Buddhocracy. Incidentally, a Chinese yin yang symbol can be found in the
middle. This can hardly be a reference to a royal couple, and rather, is
clearly a symbol of the androgyny of the Dalai Lama as the highest tantric
ruler of the Land of Snows. All the other heraldic features of the flag
(the colors, the flaming jewels, the twelve rays, etc.), which is paraded
as the coat of arm of a democratic, national Tibet, are drawn from the
royalist repertoire of the Lamaist priesthood.

The Strasbourg
Declaration of 1989 and the renunciation of autonomy it contains are
sharply criticized by the Tibetan
Youth Congress (TYC), the European
Tibetan Youth Association, and the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, Thubten
Norbu. When the head of the Tibetan
Youth Congress came under strong attack because he did not approve of
the political decisions of the Kundun,
he defended himself by pointing out that the Dalai Lama himself had called
upon him to pursue this hard-line stance — probably so as to have the
possibility of distancing himself from his Strasbourg Declaration (Goldstein, 1997, p. 139).

This political double game is currently
intensifying. Whilst the god-king continues to extend his contacts with
Beijing, the TYC’s behavior is increasingly vocally radical. We have become
too nonviolent, too passive, declared the president of the organization,
Tseten Norbu, in 1998 (Reuters, Beijing, June 22, 1998). In the
countermove, since Clinton’s visit to China (in July 1998) the Dalai Lama
has been offering himself to the Chinese as a peacemaker to be employed
against his own people as the sole bulwark against a dangerous Tibetan
radicalism: “The resentment in Tibet against the Chinese is very strong.
But there is one [person] who can influence and represent the Tibetan
people [he means himself here]. If he no longer existed the problem could
be radicalized” he threatened the Chinese leadership, of whom it has been
said that they want to wait out his death in exile (Time, July 13, 1998, p. 26).

Whatever happens to the Tibetan people
in the future, the Dalai Lama remains a powerful ancient archetype in his
double function as political and spiritual leader. In the moment in which
he has to surrender this dual role, the idea, anchored in the Kalachakra Tantra, of a “world king”
first loses its visible secular part, then the Chakravartin is worldly and spiritual ruler at once. In this
case the Dalai Lama would exercise a purely spiritual office, which more or
less corresponds to that of a Catholic Pope.

How the Kundun will in the coming years manage the complicated
balancing act between religious community and nationalism, democracy and
Buddhocracy, world dominion and parliamentary government, priesthood and
kingship, is a completely open question. He will at any rate — as Tibetan
history and his previous incarnations have taught us — tactically orient himself to the particular political
constellations of power.

The democratic faction

Within the Tibetan community there are
a few exiled Tibetans brought up in western cultures who have carefully
begun to examine the ostensible democracy of Dharamsala. In a letter to
the Tibetan Review for example,
one Lobsang Tsering wrote: „The Tibetan society in its 33-years of exile
has witnessed many scandals and turmoils. But do the people know all the
details about these events? ... The latest scandal has been the 'Yabshi vs.
Yabshi' affair concerning the two older brothers of the Dalai Lama. [Yabshi is the family name of the
Dalai Lama’s relatives.] The rumours keep on rolling and spreading like
wildfire. Many still are not sure exactly what the affair is all about. Who
are to blame for this lack of information? Up till now. anything
controversial has been kept as a state secret by our government. It is true
that not every government policy should be conducted in the open. However,
in our case, nothing is done in the open” (Tibetan Review, September 1992, p. 22). [4]

We should also take seriously the
liberal democratic intentions of younger Tibetans in the homeland. For
instance, the so-called Drepung Manifesto, which appeared in 1988 in Lhasa,
makes a refreshingly critical impression, although formulated by monks: „Having
completely eradicated the practices of the old society with all its
faults,” it says there. „the future Tibet will not resemble our former
condition and be a restoration of serfdom or be like the so-called ‘old
system’ of rule a succession of feudal masters or monastic estates.”
(Schwartz, 1994, p. 127). Whether
such statements are really intended seriously is something about which one
can only speculate. The democratic reality among the Tibetans in exile
gives rise to some doubts about this.

It is likewise a fact that the protest
movement in Tibet, continually expanding since the eighties, draws together
everyone who is dissatisfied in some way, from upright democrats to the
dark monastic ritualists for whom any means is acceptable in the quest to
restore through magic the power of the Dalai Lama on the “roof of the
world”. We shall return to discuss several examples of this in our chapter War and Peace. Western tourists who
are far more interested in the occult and mystic currents of the country than
in the establishment of a “western” democracy, encourage such atavisms as
best they can.

For the Tibetan within and outside of
their country, the situation is extremely complicated. They are confronted
daily with professions of faith in western democracy on the one hand and a
Buddhocratic, archaic reality on the other and are supposed to (the Kundun imagines) decide in favor of
two social systems at once which are not compatible with one another. In
connection with the still to be described Shugden affair this contradiction has become highly visible and
self-evident.

Additionally, the Tibetans are only now
in the process of establishing themselves as a nation, a self-concept which
did not exist at all before — at least since the country has been under
clerical control. We have to refer to the Tibet of the past as a cultural community and not as a nation. It was precisely Lamaism and
the predecessors of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, who now sets himself at the
forefront of the Tibetan Nation,
who prevented the development of a real feeling of national identity among
the populace. The “yellow church” advocated their Buddhist teachings,
invoked their deities and pursued their economic interests — yet not those
of the Tibetans as a united people. For this reason the clergy also never
had the slightest qualms about allying themselves with the Mongolians or
the Chinese against the inhabitants of the Land of Snows.

The “Great Fifth”: Absolute Sun King of Tibet

Historians are unanimous in maintaining
that the Tibetan state was the ingenious construction of a single
individual. The golden age of Lamaism begins with Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso,
the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682) and also ends with him. The saying of the
famous historian, Thomas Carlyle, that the history of the world is nothing
other than the biography of great men may be especially true of him. None
of his successors have ever achieved the same power and visionary force as
the “Great Fifth”. They are in fact just the weak transmission of a very
special energy which was gathered together in his person in the seventeenth
century. The spiritual and material foundations which he laid have shaped
the image of Tibet in both East and West up until the present day. But his practicalpolitical power, limited firstly by various Buddhist school and
then also by the Mongolians and Chinese, was not at all so huge. Rather, he
achieved his transtemporal authority through the adroit accumulation of all
spiritual resources and energies,
which he put to service with an admirable lack of inhibition and an
unbounded inventiveness. With cunning and with violence, kindness and
brutality, with an enthusiasm for ostentatious magnificence, and with magic
he organized all the significant religious forms of expression of his
country about himself as the shining center. Unscrupulous and flexible,
domineering and adroit, intolerant and diplomatic, he carried through his
goals. He was statesman, priest, historian, grammarian, poet, painter,
architect, lover, prophet, and black magician in one — and all of this
together in an outstanding and extremely effective manner.

The grand
siècle of the “Great Fifth” shone out at the same period in time as
that of Louis XIV (1638–1715), the French sun king, and the two monarchs
have often been compared to one another. They are united in their iron will
to centralize, their fascination for courtly ritual, their constant
exchange with the myths, and much more besides. The Fifth Dalai Lama and
Louis XIV thought and acted as expressions of the same temporal current and
in this lay the secret of their success, which far exceeded their practical
political victories. If it was the concept of the seventeenth century to
concentrate the state in a single person, then for both potentates the
saying rings true: l'état c'est moi
("I am the state”). Both lived from the same divine energy, the
all-powerful sun. The “king” from Lhasa also saw himself as a solar “fire
god”, as the lord of his era, an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. The year of his birth (1617) is assigned to
the “fire serpent” in the Tibetan calendar. Was this perhaps a cosmic
indicator that he would become a master of high tantric practices, who
governed his empire with the help of the kundalini ("fire serpent”)?

In the numerous visions of the
potentate in which the most important gods and goddesses of Vajrayana appeared before him,
tantric unions constantly took place. For him, the transformation of
sexuality into spiritual and worldly power was an outright element of his
political program. Texts which he himself wrote describe how he, absorbed
by one such exercise by a divine couple, slipped into the vagina of his
wisdom consort, bathed there “in the red and white bodhicitta” and afterwards returned to his old body blissful
and regenerated (Karmay, 1988, p. 49).

Contemporary documents revere him as
the “sun and moon” in one person. (Yumiko, 1993, p. 41). He had mastered a
great number of tantric techniques and even practiced his ritual
self-destruction (chod) without
batting an eyelid. Once he saw how a gigantic scorpion penetrated into his
body and devoured all his internal organs. Then the creature burst into
flames which consumed the remainder of his body (Karmay, 1988, p. 52). He
exhibited an especial predilection for the most varied terror deities who
supported him in executing his power politics.

The Fifth Dalai Lama was obsessed by
the deliriums of magic. He saw all of his political and cultural successes
as the result of his own invocations. For him, armies were only the
executive organs of prior tantric rituals. Everywhere, he — the god upon
the Lion Throne — perceived gods and demons to be at work, with whom he
formed alliances or against whom he took to the field. Every step that he
took was prepared for by prophecies and oracles. The visions in which Avalokiteshvara appeared to him were
frequent, and just as frequently he identified with the “fire god”. With a
grand gesture he dissolved the whole world into energy fields which he
attempted to control magically — and he in fact succeeded. The Asia of the
time took him seriously and allowed him to impose his system. He reigned as
Chakravartin, as world ruler, and
as the AdiBuddha on earth. Chinese Emperors and Mongolian Khans feared
him for his metaphysical power.

One might think that his religious
emotionalism was only a pretext, to be employed as a means of establishing
real power. His sometimes sarcastic, but always sophisticated manner may
suggest this. It is, however, highly unlikely, then the divine statesman
had his occult and liturgical secrets written down, and it is clear from
these records that his first priority was the control of the symbolic world
and the tantric rituals and that he derived his political decisions from
these.

His Secret
Biography and the Golden Manuscript
which he wrote (Karmay, 1988) were up until most recently kept locked away
and were only accessible to a handful of superiors from the Gelugpa order.
These two documents — which may now be viewed– also reveal the author to be
a grand sorcerer who evaluated anything and everything as the expression of
divine plans and whose conceptions of power are no longer to be interpreted
as secular. There is no doubting that the “Great Fifth” thought and acted
as a deity completely consciously. This sort of thing is said to be
frequent among kings, but the lord from the roof of the world also
possessed the energy and the power of conviction to transform his tantric
visions into a reality which still persists today.

The predecessors of the Fifth Dalai Lama

The organizational and disciplinary
strength of the Gelugpa ("Yellow Hat”) order formed the Fifth Dalai
Lama’s power base, upon which he could build his system. Shortly after the
death of Tsongkhapa (the founder of the “Yellow Hats”) his successors
adopted the doctrine of incarnation from the Kagyupa sect. Hence the chain
of incarnated forebears of the “Great Fifth” was fixed from the start. It
includes four incarnations from the ranks of the Gelugpas, of whom only the
last two bore the title of Dalai Lama,
the first pair were accorded the rank posthumously.

The chain begins with Gyalwa Gendun
Drub (1391–1474) , a pupil of Tsongkhapa and later the First Dalai Lama. He
was an outstanding expert on, and higher initiand into, the Kalachakra Tantra and composed
several commentaries upon it which are still read today. His writings on
this topic, even if they never attain the methodical precision and
canonical knowledge of his teacher, Tsongkhapa, show that he practiced the
tantra and sought bisexuality in “the form of Kalachakra and his consort” (Dalai Lama I, 1985, p. 181).

His androgynous longings are especially
clear in the hymns with which he invoked the goddess Tara so as to be able to assume her feminine form: “Suddenly I
appear as the holy Arya Tara, whose mind is beyond samsara” he writes. “My
body is green in color and my face reflects a warmly serene smile ...
attained to immortality, my appearance is that of a sixteen-year-old-girl”
(Dalai Lama I, 1985, pp. 135, 138).

This appearance as the goddess of mercy
did not, however, restrain him from following a pretty hard line in the
construction of the legal system. He determined that prisons be constructed
in all monasteries, where some of his opponents lost their lives under
inhuman circumstances. The penal system which he codified was intransigent
and cruel. Days without food and whippings were a part of this, just like
the cutting off of the right hand in cases of theft or the death penalty
for breach of the vows of celibacy, insofar as this took place outside of the
tantric rituals. His severity and rigor nonetheless earned him the sympathy
of the people, who saw him as the arm of a just and angry god who brought
order to the completely deteriorated world of the monastic clergy.

The title Dalai Lama first appears during the encounter between the
arch-abbot of Sera, Sonam Gyatso
(1543–1588) and the Mongolian Khan, Altan. The prince of the church (later
the Third Dalai Lama) undertook the strenuous journey to the north and
visited the Mongols in the year 1578 at their invitation. He spent a number
of days at the court of Altan Khan, initiated him into the teachings of the
Buddha a and successfully demonstrated his spiritual power through all
manner of sensational miracles. One day the prince of the steppes appeared
in a white robe which was supposed to symbolize love, and confessed with
much feeling to the Buddhist faith. He promised to transform the “blood
sea” into a “sea of milk” by changing the Mongolian laws. Sonam Gyatso
replied, “You are the thousand-golden-wheel-turning Chakravartin or world ruler” (Bleichsteiner, 1937, p. 89).

It can be clearly gathered from this
apotheosis that the monk conceded secular authority to the successor of
Genghis Khan. But as an incarnated Buddha he ranked himself more highly.
This emerges from an initiatory speech in which one of Altan's nephews
compares him to the moon, but addresses the High Lama from the Land of
Snows as the omnipotent sun (Bleichsteiner, 1937, p. 88). But the Mongol
prince called his guest “Dalai Lama”, a somewhat modest title on the basis
of the translation usual these days, “Ocean of Wisdom”. Robert
Bleichsteiner also translates it somewhat more emotionally as
“Thunderbolt-bearing World Ocean Priest”. The god-king of Tibet thus bears
a Mongolian title, not a Tibetan one.

At the meeting between Sonam Gyatso and
Altan Khan there were surely negotiations about the pending fourth
incarnation of the “Dalai Lama” (Yonten Gyatso 1589–1617), then he appeared
among the Mongols in the figure of a great-grandchild of Khan’s.
Bleichsteiner refers to this “incarnation decision” as a “particularly
clever chess move”, which finally ensured the control of the “Yellow Hats”
over Mongolia and obliged the Khans to provide help to the order
(Bleichsteiner, 1937, p. 89). The Mongolian Fourth Dalai Lama died at the
age of 28 and did not play a significant political role.

This was taken over by the powerful
Kagyupa sect (the so-called “Red Hats”) at this stage in time. The “Red
Hats” recruited their members exclusively from national (Tibetan) forces.
They had attacked Sonam Gyatso’s (the III Dalai Lama’s) journey to the
Mongols as treason and were able to continually expand their power
political successes so that by the 1630s the Gelugpa order was only savable
via external intervention.

Thus, nothing seemed more obvious than
that the “Great Fifth” should demonstratively adopt the Mongolian title
“Dalai Lama” so as to motivate the warlike nomadic tribes from the north to
occupy and conquer Tibet. This state political calculation paid off in
full. The result was a terrible civil war between the Kagyupas and the
followers of the prince of Tsang on the one side and the Gelugpas and the
Mongol leader Gushri Khan on the other.

If the records are to be trusted, the
Mongol prince, Gushri Khan, made a gift of his military conquests (i.e.,
Tibet) to the Fifth Dalai Lama and handed over his sword after the victory
over the “Red Hats”. This was not evaluated symbolically as a pacifist act,
but rather as the ceremonial equipping of the prince of the church with
secular power. Yet it remains open to question whether the power-conscious
Mongol really saw this symbolic act in these terms, then de jure Gushri Khan retained the
title “King of Tibet” for himself. The “Great Fifth” in contrast, certainly
interpreted the gift of the sword as a gesture of submission by the Khan
(the renunciation of authority over Tibet), then de facto from now on he managed affairs like an absolute ruler.

The Secret Biography

The Fifth Dalai Lama took his
self-elevation to the status of a deity and his magic practices just as
seriously as he did his real power politics. For him, every political act,
every military operation was launched by a visionary event or prepared for
with a invocatory ritual. Nevertheless, as a Tantric, the dogma of the
emptiness of all being and the nonexistence of the phenomenal world stood
for him behind the whole ritual and mystic theater which he performed. This
was the epistemological precondition to being able to control the
protagonists of history just like those of the spiritual world. It is
against this framework that the “Great Fifth” introduces his autobiography
(SecretBiography) with an irony which undermines his own life’s work
in the following verses:

The erudite should not
read this work, they will be embarrassed.

It is only for the
guidance of fools who revel in fanciful ideas.

Although it tries frankly
to avoid pretentiousness,

It is nevertheless
corrupted with deceit.

By speaking honestly on
whatever occurred, this could be taken to be lies.

As if illusions of
Samsara were not enough,

This stupid mind of mine
is further attracted

To ultra-illusory
visions.

It is surely mad to say
that the image of the Buddha's compassion

Is reflected in the
mirror of karmic existence.

Let me now write the
following pages,

Though it will disappoint
those who are led to believe

That the desert-mirage is
water,

As well as those who are
enchanted by folk-tales,

And those who delight in
red clouds in summer.”

(Karmay, 1988, p. 27)

Up until recent times the Secret Biography had not been made
public, it was a secret document only accessible to a few chosen. There is
no doubting that the power-obsessed “god-king” wanted to protect the
extremely intimate and magic character of his writings through the all-dispersing
introductory poem. One of the few handwritten copies is kept in the Munich
State Library. There it can be seen that the Great Fifth nonetheless took
his “fairy tales” so seriously that he marked the individual chapters with
a red thumbprint.

Everything about Tibet which so
fascinates people from the West is in collected in the multilayered
character of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Holiness and barbarism, compassion and realpolitik, magic and power, king
and mendicant monk, splendor and modesty, war and peace, megalomania and
humility, god and mortal — the pontiff from Lhasa was able to simplify
these paradoxes to a single formula and that was himself. He was for an
ordinary person one of the incomprehensibly great, a contradiction made
flesh, a great solitary, upon whom in his own belief the life of the world
hung. He was a mystery for the people, a monster for his enemies, a deity
for his followers, a beast for his opponents. This ingenious despot is — as
we shall later see — the highest example for the current Fourteenth Dalai
Lama.

The regent Sangye Gyatso

The Fifth Dalai Lama did not need to
worry about a successor, because he was convinced that he would be
reincarnated in a child a few days after his death. Yet with wise foresight
the time between his rebirth and his coming of age needed to be organized.
Here too, the “Great Fifth”'s choice was a brilliant piece of power
politics. As „regent” he decided to appoint the lama Sangye Gyatso (1653–1705)
and equipped him with all the regalia of a king already in the last years
of his life. He seated him upon the broad throne of the fearless lion as
the executor of two duties, one worldly and one religious, which are
appropriate to a great Chakravartin
kingship, as a lord of heaven and earth (Ahmad, 1970, p. 43). The Dalai Lama thus appointed him world
ruler until his successor (who he himself was) came of age. It was rumored
with some justification that the regent was his biological son (Hoffmann,
1956, p. 176).

In terms of his abilities, Sangye
Gyatso must be regarded not just as a skilled statesman, rather he was also
the author of a number of intelligent books on such varied topics as
healing, law, history, and ritual systems. He proceeded against the women
of Lhasa with great intolerance. According to a contemporary report he is
said to have issued a command that every female being could only venture
into public with a blackened face, so that the monks would not fall into
temptation.

So as to consolidate his threatened
position during the troubled times, he kept the demise of his “divine
father” (the Fifth Dalai Lama) secret for ten years and explained that the
prince of the church remained in the deepest meditation. When in the year
1703 the Mongolian prince, Lhazang, posed the never completely resolved
question of power between Lhasa and the warrior nomads and himself claimed
regency over Tibet, an armed conflict arose.

The right wing of the Mongol army was
under the command of the martial wife of the prince, Tsering Tashi. She
succeeded in capturing the regent and carried out his death sentence
personally. If she was a vengeant incarnation of Srinmo in the “land of the gods”, then her revenge also
extended to the coming Sixth Dalai Lama, over whose fate we report in a
chapter of its own.

The successors of the “Great Fifth”: The Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Dalai Lamas

The Seventh and Eighth Dalai Lamas only
played a minor role in the wider political world. As we have already
reported, the four following god-kings (The Ninth to the Twelfth Dalai
Lamas) either died an early death or were murdered. It was first the
so-called “Great Thirteenth” who could be described as a “politician”
again. Although in constant contact with the modern world, Thubten Gyatso,
the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1874–1933), thought and acted like his
predecessor, the “Great Fifth”. Visions and magic continued to determine
political thought and activity in Tibet after the boy moved into the Potala
amid great spectacle in July 1879. In 1894 he took power over the state. Shortly
before, the officiating regent had been condemned because of a black magic
ritual which he was supposed to have performed to attack the young
thirteenth god-king, and because of a conspiracy with the Chinese. He was
thrown into one of the dreadful monastery dungeons, chained up, and
maltreated him till he died. A co-conspirator, head of a distinguished
noble family, was brought to the Potala after his deeds were discovered and
pushed from the highest battlements of the palace. His names, possessions and
even the women of his house were then given to a favorite of the Dalai
Lama’s as a gift.

In 1904 the god-king had to flee to
Mongolia to evade the English who occupied Lhasa. Under pressure from the
Manchu dynasty he visited Beijing in 1908. We have already described how
the Chinese Emperor and the Empress Dowager Ci Xi died mysteriously during
this visit. He later fell out with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama with the
Panchen Lama,[5] who cooperated
with the Chinese and was forced to flee Tibet in 1923. The “Great
Thirteenth” conducted quite unproductive fluctuating political negotiations
with Russia, England, and China; why he was given the epithet of “the
Great” nobody really knows, not even his successor from Dharamsala.

An American
envoy gained the impression that His Holiness (the Thirteenth Dalai Lama)
„cared very little, if at all, for anything which did not affect his
personal privileges and prerogatives, that he separated entirely his case
from that of the people of Tibetan, which he was willing to abandon
entirely to the mercy of China” (Mehra, 1976, p.20) When we recall that the institution of the Dalai
Lama was a Mongolian arrangement which was put through in the civil war of
1642 against the will of the majority of the Tibetans, such an evaluation
may well be justified.

As an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the thirteenth
hierarch also (like the “Great Fifth”) saw himself surrounded less by
politicians and heads of state than by gods and demons. David Seyfort Ruegg
most astutely indicates that the criteria by which Buddhists in positions
of power assess historical events and personalities have nothing in common
with our western, rational conceptions. For them, “supernatural” forces and
powers are primarily at work, using people as bodily vessels and
instruments. We have already had a taste of this in the opposition between
the god-king as an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara
and Guanyin in the form of
the Empress Dowager Ci Xi. Further examples in the coming chapters should
show how magic and politics, war and ritual are also interwoven here.

Now what is the situation with regard
to these topics and the living Fourteenth Dalai Lama? Has his almost
40--year exposure to western culture changed anything fundamental in the
traditional political understanding? Is the current god-king free of the
ancient, magical visions of power of his predecessors? Let us allow him to
answer this question himself: in adopting the position of the Fifth Dalai
Lama, the Kundun explained in an
interview in 1997, “I am supposed to follow what he did” (Dalai Lama, HPI
006). As a consequence we too are entitled to accredit the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama with all the deeds and visions of the great fifth hierarch and to
assess his politics according to the criteria of his famous exemplar.

Incarnation and power

Lamaism’s particular brand of
controlling power is based upon the doctrine of incarnation. Formerly
(before the Communist invasion) the incarnation system covered the entire
Land of Snows like a network. In Tibet, the monastic incarnations are
called “tulkus”. Tulku means literally the “self-transforming body”. In
Mongolia they are known as “chubilganes”. There were over a hundred of
these at the end of the nineteenth century. Even in Beijing during the
reign of the imperial Manchus there were fourteen offices of state which
were reserved for Lamaist tulkus but not always occupied.

The Tibetan doctrine incarnation is
often misunderstood. Whilst concepts of rebirth in the West are dominated
by a purely individualist idea in the sense that an individual progresses
through a number of lifetimes on earth in a row, a distinction is drawn in
Tibet between three types of incarnation:

When the incarnation as the emanation of a
supernatural being, a Buddha, Bodhisattva, or a wrathful deity. Here,
incarnation means that the lama in question is the embodiment of a
deity, just as the Dalai Lama is an embodiment of Avalokiteshvara. The tulku lives from the spiritual
energies of a transcendent being or, vice versa, this being emanates
in a human body.

When reincarnation arises through the
initiatory transfer from the master to the sadhaka, that is, the “root
guru” (represented by the master) and the deities who stand behind him
embody themselves in his pupil.

When it concerns the rebirth of a historical
figure who reveals himself in the form of a new born baby. For
example, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is also an incarnation of the Fifth
Dalai Lama.

The first and third concepts of
incarnation do not necessarily contradict one another, rather they can
complement each other, so that a person who has already died and deity can
simultaneously be embodied in a person. But come what may, the deity has
priority and supreme authority. It seems obvious that their bodily continuity
and presence in this world is far better ensured by the doctrine of
incarnation than by a natural line of inheritance. In a religious system in
which the person means ultimately nothing, but the gods who stand behind
him are everything, the human body only represents the instrument through
which a higher being can make an appearance. From the deity’s point of view
a natural reproduction would bring the personal interests of a family into
conflict with his or her own divine ambitions.

The incarnation system in contrast is
impersonal, anti-genetic, and anti-aristocratic. For this reason the
monastic orders as such are protected. through the rearing of a “divine”
childit creates for itself the best
conditions for the survival of its tradition, which can no longer be
damaged by incapable heirs, family intrigues, and nepotism.

On a more fundamental symbolic level,
the doctrine of incarnation must nevertheless be seen as an ingenious chess
move against the woman’s monopoly on childbirth and the dependence of
humanity upon the cycle of birth. It makes things “theoretically”
independent of birth and the woman as the Great Mother. That mothers are
nonetheless needed to bring the little tulkus into the world is not
significant from a Buddhological point of view. The women serve purely as a
tool, they are so to speak the corporeal cradle into which the god settles
down in the form of an embryo. The conception of an incarnated lama (tulku) is thus always regarded as a
supernatural procedure and it does not arise through the admixture of the
male and female seed as is normal. Like in the Buddha legend, where the
mother of the Sublime One is made pregnant in a dream by an elephant, so
too the mother of a Tibetan tulku has visions and dreams of divine entities
who enter into her. But the role of the “wet nurse” is taken over by the
monks already, so that the child can be suckled upon the milk of their
androcentric wisdom from the most tender age.

The doctrine of reincarnation was
fitted out by the clergy with a high grade symbolic system which cannot be
accessed by ordinary mortals. But as historical examples show, the
advantages of the doctrine were thoroughly capable of being combined now
and again with the principle of biological descent. Hence, among the powerful
Sakyapas, where the office of abbot was inherited within a family dynasty,
both the chain of inheritance and the precepts of incarnation were
observed. Relatives, usually the nephews of the heads of the Sakyapa order,
were simply declared to be tulkus.

Let us consider the Lamaist “lineage
tree” or “spiritual tree” and its relation to the tulku system. Actually,
one would assume that the child recognized as being a reincarnation would
already possess all the initiation mysteries which it had acquired in former
lives. Paradoxically, this is however not the case. Every Dalai Lama, every
Karmapa, every tulku is initiated “anew” into the various tantric mysteries
by a master. Only after this may he consider himself a branch of the
“lineage tree” whose roots, trunk, and crown consist of the many
predecessors of his guru and his guru’s guru. There are critics of the
system who therefore claim with some justification that a child recognized
as an incarnation first becomes the “vessel” of a deity after his “indoctrination”
(i.e., after his initiation).

The traditional power of the individual
Lamaist sects is primarily demonstrated by their lineage tree. It is the
idealized image of a hierarchic/sacred social structure which draws its
legitimation from the divine mysteries, and is supposed to imply to the
subjects that the power elite represent the visible and time transcending
assembly of an invisible, unchanging meta-order. At the origin of the
initiation tree there is always a Buddha who emanates in a Bodhisattva who
then embodies himself in a Maha
Siddha. The roaming, wild-looking founding yogis (the Maha Siddhas) are, however, very
soon replaced in the generations which follow by faceless “civil servants”
within the lineage tree; fantastic great sorcerers have become uniformed
state officials. The lineage tree now consists of the scholars and
arch-abbots of the lama state.

The “Great Fifth” and the system of incarnation

Historically, for the “yellow sect”
(the Gelugpa order) which traditionally furnishes the Dalai Lama, the
question of incarnation at first did not play such a significant role as it
did, for example, among the “Red Hats” (Kagyupa). The Fifth Dalai Lama
first extended the system properly for his institution and developed it
into an ingenious political artifact, whose individual phases of
establishment over the years 1642 to 1653 we can reconstruct exactly on the
basis of the documentary evidence. The “Great Fifth” saw himself as an
incarnation of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
The embodiment of the Tibetan “national god” was until then a privilege
claimed primarily by the Sakyapa and Kagyupa orders but not by the Gelugpa
school. Rather, their founder, Tsongkhapa, was considered to be an
emanation of the Bodhisattva Manjushri,
the “Lord of Transcendental Knowledge”. In contrast, already in the
thirteenth century the Karmapas presented themselves to the public as
manifestations of Avalokiteshvara.

An identification with the Tibetan
“national god” and first father, Chenrezi
(Avalokiteshvara), was, so to
speak, a mythological precondition for being able to rule the Land of Snows
and its spirits, above all since the subjugation and civilization of Tibet
were associated with the “good deeds” of the Bodhisattva, beginning with
his compassionate, monkey union with the primal mother Srinmo. Among the people too, the Bodhisattva enjoyed the
highest divine authority, and his mantra, om mani padme hum, was recited daily by all. Hence, whoever
wished to rule the Tibetans and govern the universe from the roof of the
world, could only do so as a manifestation of the fire god, Chenrezi, the controller of our age.

The “Great Fifth” was well aware of
this, and via a sophisticated masterpiece of the manipulation of
metaphysical history, he succeeded in establishing himself as Avalokiteshvara and as the final
station of a total of 57 previous incarnations of the god. Or was it — as
he himself reported — really a miracle which handed him the politically
momentous incarnation list? Through a terma
(i.e., a rediscovered text written and hidden in the era of the Tibetan
kings) which he found in person, his chain of incarnations was apparently
“revealed” to him.

Among the “forebears” listed in it many
of the great figures of Tibetan history can be found — outstanding politicians,
ingenious scholars, master magicians, and victorious military leaders. With
this “discovered” or “concocted” document of his, the “Great Fifth” could
thus shore himself up with a political and intellectual authority which
stretched over centuries. The list was an especially valuable legitimation
for his sacred/worldly kingship, since the great emperor, Songtsen Gampo,
was included among his “incarnation ancestors”. In his analysis of the
introduction of the Chenrezi cult
by His Holiness, the Japanese Tibetologist, Ishihama Yumiko, leaves no
doubt that we are dealing with a power-political construction (Yumiko,
1993, pp. 54, 55).

Now, which entities were — and,
according to the Fifth Dalai Lama’s theory of incarnation, still are —
seated upon the golden Lion Throne? First of all, the fiery Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, then the
androgynous time turner, Kalachakra,
then the Tibetan warrior king, Songtsen
Gampo, then the Siddha versed in magic, Padmasambhava (the founder of Tantric Buddhism in Tibet), and
finally the Fifth Dalai Lama himself with all his family forebears. This
wasn’t nearly all, but those mentioned are the chief protagonists, who
determine the incarnation theater in Tibet. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, as
the successor of the “Great Fifth” also represents the above-mentioned
“divinities” and historical predecessors.

In an assessment of the Buddhocratic
system and the history of Tibet, the power-political intentions of the two
main gods (Avalokiteshvara and Kalachakra) must therefore be examined
and evaluated in the first place so as to deduce the intentions of the
currently living Dalai Lama on this basis. “It is impossible”, the
Tibetologist David Seyfort Ruegg writes, “to draw a clear border between
the 'holy and the 'profane', or rather between the spiritual and the
temporal. This is most apparent in the case of the Bodhisattva kings who
are represented by the Dalai Lamas, since these are both embodiments of Avalokiteshvara ... and worldly
rulers” (Seyfort Ruegg, 1995, p. 91).

If we assume that the higher the
standing of a spiritual entity, the greater his power is, we must pose the
question of why in the year 1650 the Fifth Dalai Lama confirmed and
proclaimed the first Panchen Lama, Lobsang Chokyi Gyaltsen (1567–1662), his
former teacher, as a incarnation of Amitabha.
For indeed, Amitabha, the “Buddha
of unending light”, is ranked higher in the hierarchy than the Bodhisattva
who emanates from him, Avalokiteshvara.
This decision by the extremely power conscious god-king from Lhasa can thus
only be understood when one knows that, as a meditation Buddha, Amitabha may not interfere in
worldly affairs. According to doctrine, he exists only as a principle of
immobility and is active solely through his emanations. Even though he is
the Buddha of our age, he must nevertheless leave all worldly matters to
his active arm, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
Through such a division of responsibilities, a contest between the Panchen
Lama and Dalai Lama could never even arise.

Nevertheless, the Panchen Lamas have
never wanted to fall into line with the nonpolitical role assigned to them.
In contrast — they have attempted by all available means to interfere in
the “events of the world”. Their central monastery, Tashi Lhunpo, became at
times a stronghold in which all those foreign potentates who had been
rebuffed by the Potala found a sympathetic ear. While negotiations were
conducted with the Russians and Mongolians in Lhasa at the start of last
century, Tashi Lhunpo conspired with the English and Chinese. Thus, the
statesmanly autonomy of the Panchen Lama has often been the cause of
numerous and acrid discordances with the Dalai Lama which have on several
occasions bordered on a schism.

The sacred power of the Tibetan kings and its conferral upon
the Dalai Lamas

So as to legitimate his full worldly
control, it seemed obvious for the “Great Fifth” to make borrowings from
the symbolism of sacred kingship. The most effective of these was to
present himself as the incarnation of significant secular rulers with the
stated aim of now continuing their successful politics. The Fifth Dalai
Lama latched onto this idea and extended his chain of incarnations to reach
the divine first kings from prehistoric times.

But, as we know, these were in no sense
Buddhist, but rather fostered a singular, shamanist-influenced style of
religion. They traced their origins to an old lineage of spirits who had
descended to earth from the heavenly regions. Through an edict of the Fifth
Dalai Lama they, and with them the later historical kings, were
reinterpreted as emanations from “Buddha fields”. As proof of this,
alongside a document “discovered” by the resourceful hierarch, a further
“hidden” text (terma), the Mani Kabum, is cited, which an eager
monk is supposed to have found in the 12th century. In it the three post
powerful ruling figures of the Yarlung dynasty are explained to be
emanations of Bodhisattvas: Songtsen Gampo (617–650) as an embodiment of Avalokiteshvara, Trisong Detsen
(742–803) as an emanation of Manjushri,
and Ralpachan (815–883) as one of Vajrapani.
From here on they are considered to be bearers of the Buddhist doctrine.

After their Buddhist origins had been
assured, the Tibetan kings posthumously took on all the characteristics of
a world ruler. As Dharmarajas (kings
of the law) they now represented the cosmic laws on earth. Likewise the
“Great Fifth” could now be celebrated as the most powerful secular king
reborn(Songtsen Gampo, who was likewise an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara) and through this
could combine the imperium
(worldly rule) with the sacerdotium
(spiritual power). This choice legitimated him as national hero and supreme
war lord and permitted a fundamental reform of the Lamaist state system
which S. J. Tambiah refers to as the “feudalization of the church”.

The great military commander and tribal
chief, Songtsen Gampo (617–650), who during his reign forged the highlands
into a state of unprecedented size, was thus included into the Buddhist
pantheon. Still today we can find impressive depictions of the feared
warlord — usually in full armor, and flanked by his two chief wives, the
Chinese Wen Cheng, and the Nepalese Bhrikuti.

The king is said to have commanded a
force of 200,000 men. His conduct of war was considered extremely barbaric
and the “red faces”, as the Tibetans were known by the surrounding peoples,
spread fear and horror across all of central Asia. The extent to which
Songtsen Gampo was able to extend his imperium roughly corresponds to theterritory over which the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama today still claims as his dominion. Hence, thanks to the “Great Fifth”
the geopolitical dimensions were also adopted from the sacred kingship.

From the point of view of a tantric
interpretation of history, however, the greatest deed of this ancient king
(Songtsen Gampo) was the nailing down of the earth mother, Srinmo, and the staking of her heart
beneath the holiest of holies in the land, the Jokhang temple.The “Great Fifth”, as a confirmed
ritualist, would surely have considered the “mastering of the demoness” as
the cause of Songtsen Gampo's historical successes. Almost a thousand years
later he too would precede almost every political and military decision
with a magic ritual.

One day, it is said, Songtsen Gampo
appeared to him in a dream and demanded of him that he manufacture a golden
statue of him (the king) in the “style of a Chakravartin” and place this in the Jokhang temple. When, in
the year 1651, the “Great Fifth” visited locations at which the great king
was once active, according to the chronicles flowers began to rain from the
skies there and the eight Tibetan signs of luck floated through the air.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and the question of incarnation

On July 6, 1935, the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama was born as the child of ordinary people in a village by the name of
Takster, which means, roughly, “shining tiger”. In connection with our
study of the topic of gender it is interesting that the parents originally
gave the boy a girl’s name. He was called Lhamo Dhondup, that is, “wish fulfilling goddess”. The
androgyny of this incarnation of Avalokiteshvara
was thus already signaled before his official recognition.

The story of his discovery has been
told so often and spectacularly filmed in the meantime that we only wish to
sketch it briefly here. After the death of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, the
then regent (Reting Rinpoche) saw mysterious letters in a lake which was
dedicated to the protective goddess Palden
Lhamo, which together with other visions indicated that the new
incarnation of the god-king was to be found in the northeast of the country
in the province of Amdo. A search commission was equipped in Lhasa and set
out on the strenuous journey. In a hut in the village of Takster a small
boy is supposed to have run up to one of the commissioners and demanded the
necklace of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama which he held in his hands. The monk
refused and would only give him it if the child could say who he was. “You
are a lama from Sera!”, the boy is said to have cried out in the dialect
which is only spoken in Lhasa. [6] Afterwards, from the objects laid out
before him he selected those which belonged to his predecessor; the others
he laid aside. The bodily examination performed on the child also revealed
the necessary five features which distinguish a Dalai Lama: The imprint of
a tiger skin on the thigh; extended eyelashes with curved lashes; large
ears; two fleshy protuberances on the shoulders which are supposed to
represent two rudimentary arms of Avalokiteshvara;
the imprint of a shell on his hand.

For understandable reasons the fact
that a Chinese dialect was spoken in the family home of His Holiness is
gladly passed over in silence. The German Tibet researcher, Matthias
Hermanns, who was doing field work in Amdo at the time of the discovery and
knew the family of the young Kundun well,
reports that the child could understand no Tibetan at all. When he met him
and asked his name, the boy answered in Chinese that he was called “Chi”.
This was the official Chinese name for the village of Takster (Hermanns,
1956, p. 319). Under difficult circumstances the child arrived in Lhasa at
the end of 1939 and was received there as Kundun, the living Buddha. Already as an eight year old he
received his first introduction into the tantric teachings.

Every little tulku who is separated
from his family at a tender age misses the motherly touch. For the
Fourteenth Dalai Lama this role was taken over by his cook, Ponpo by name.
Not at the death of his mother, but rather at the demise of his substitute
mother, Ponpo, the Kundun cried
bitter tears. “He fed me,” he said sadly, “most mammals consider the
creature that feeds them as the most important in their lives, That was the
way I felt about Ponpo. I knew my teachers were more important than my
cook, but emotionally the strongest bond was with him” (Craig, 1997, p.
326).

In a discussion which the Dalai Lama
later conducted with academics, he showed a keen interest in the maternal
warmth and tender touching of the child as an important element in the
development of personality. He became reflective as one (female ) speaker
explained that the absence of such bodily contact in childhood could result
in serious psychic damage to the person affected (Dalai Lama XIV, 1995, p.
319).

All young
tulkus must do without all motherly contact in the purely masculine society
of the monasteries and this may be an unspoken psychological problem for
the whole Lamaist system. The Tibetan guru, Chögyam Trungpa has
unintentionally captured this longing for contact with the family in the
moving words of his „defiant poem”, Nameless
Child: „Suddenly,” it says there „a Suddenly, a luminous child without
a name comes into being. ... In the place where metal birds croak
instantaneously born child can find no name... Because he has no father,
the child has no family line. He has never tasted milk because he has no
mother. He has no one to play with because he has no brother and
sister. Having no house to live in, he has no crib. Since he has no
nanny, he has never cried. There is no civilization, so he has no toys.
... Since there is no point of reference, he has never found a self”
(quoted and Italics by June Campbell, 1996, p. 88). The poem is supposed to glorify the
“instantaneously born child”, but it more resembles the despairing cry of a
being who had to renounce the joys of childhood because it was tantrically
turned into the vessel of a deity.

The introduction of the doctrine of incarnation to the West

These days, the West is downright
fascinated by the idea of reincarnation. In the last twenty years it has
like lightning seized the awareness of millions. A large percentage of
north Americans today believe in rebirth. Books upon the topic have become
legion in the meantime. People are also fascinated by the idea that in the
figure of a Tibetan lama they are face to face with a real “deity”. Thus,
the concept of being reborn has become a powerful instrument in the Lamaist
conquest of the West. Earlier, a few Europeans had already formed the idea
that they were the reincarnation of former Tibetans or Mongolians. In
theosophical circles such speculative incarnations were en vogue. A Tibetan lama also drew
Alexandra David-Neel’s attention to the fact that she came from the race of
Genghis Khan.

In 1985 it was discovered that the
honorable Lama Yeshe had incarnated as the child of two Spanish parents.
His Holiness commented upon the spectacular event in the following words:
“[Buddhism] also provides many different methods to practice, understand
and meditate, so it has the attraction of the supermarket. So the fact that
Lama Yeshe, whose main work was in the West, should be born in Spain, seems
quite logical. Actually there are quite a few western reincarnated lamas
now” (Mackenzie, 1992, p. 155).

The idea of western reincarnations is
also cultivated by Bernardo Bertolucci’s film, Little Buddha. The plot involves a lama who simultaneously
embodies himself in a white boy from Seattle and, amazingly, in a girl as
well.

An amusing anecdote, likewise from the
world of film, brought the Tibetan doctrine of incarnation into discredit a
little. Namely, the famous Aikido fighter and actor Steven Seagal announced
he was the reincarnation of an important lama (Chung-rag Dorje), who had live several centuries earlier and
had made his name as a treasure hunter (terton).
[7] It was not at all the case that Seagal had arbitrarily adopted his
former identity, rather he was able to appeal to the confirmation of Penor
Rinpoche, the head of the Nyingmapa school. This “revelation” raised many
questions and some confusion among western Buddhists. There was speculation
on the Internet as to whether Seagal had purchased the “incarnation title”,
whether this was not an act of religious political propaganda designed to
exploit the actor’s popularity, and much more. For others the incident was
more embarrassing, since Seagal appeared in monastic robes shortly after
his recognition. When he was in Bodh Gaya in India at the beginning of the
year 1997, he sat down upon the place where the historical Buddha
experienced enlightenment, “giving his blessings to hundreds of baffled
Tibetan monks” (Time, September
8, 1997, p. 65).

The action films in which Seagal plays
the lead are considered the most brutal of the genre. “Scenes in which he
rams a knife through his opponent’s ear into his brain or tears out his
larynx”, says the journalist H. Timmerberg, “captivate through their
apparent authenticity. He fights dispassionately, one could say he fights
coldly, and when he kills neither hate nor anger are to be read in his
eyes, at best contempt and a trace of amusement. Precisely the eyes of a
killer, or the look of a Samurai. It could be both” (Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin No. 28, July 16, 1999). Timmerberg
also characterizes the star as “ a grand master in the art of killing”.
Admittedly, in his last two film to Seagal has made an effort to appear a
bit more well-mannered, but it is not his religious obligations which have
compelled him to do so. At least, this was the opinion of his master, Penor
Rinpoche: “Some people think Steven Seagal cannot be a true Buddhist
because he makes brutal films. This is not the case.Such films are pure
entertainment and have nothing to do with that which is true and important.
In the view of Buddhism compassionate beings reincarnate in every kind of
life so as to help their fellow people. Seen thus, of course a holy person
can be an action star” (Süddeutsche
Zeitung Magazin No. 28, July 16, 1999). Penor further informed the
surprised journalist that tulkus (the reincarnations of high lamas) liked
to watch vampire films.

At the major Kalachakra event conducted this year (1999) by the Dalai Lama
in Bloomington (USA), Seagal was the shooting star. He is said to had
donated a meal for over a thousand participants there. This time Richard
Gere, the “god-king’s” second big draw, was not head of the celebrity bill.
In fact, the two Buddhist stars cannot stand one another.

Such a sensational and liberal spread
of incarnations in the West could, however, be of harm to the whole idea in
future. The system has after all not just its strengths but also its
weaknesses, which lie above all in the minority of the incarnated child, of
whom one does not know exactly what will later happen with him, and who
remains incapable of acting until his coming of age. Appointments by the
Dalai Lama would probably be a much more effective means of ensuring his
centralist power. In fact, there are for this reason discussions in the
circles surrounding him about whether the reincarnation of monks is at all
sensible. It would be better to give up the whole tulku system, Dahyb
Kyabgö Rinpoche wrote in the Tibetan
Review, since it has led to an uncontrollable inflation in the number
of monastic reincarnations (Tibetan
Review, July 1994, p. 13).

At times the Kundun has also speculated in public about whether it would not
be politically more clever to name a successor rather than embodying
himself anew. But he has not committed himself. At a conference of 350
tulkus in the year 1989 he announced that he would under no circumstance
reincarnate in the territory under the control of the Chinese (Tibetan Review, January 1989, p. 5).

In all, the Dalai Lama is interested in
a well-functioning incarnation elite, very small in number, which would be
combined with an effective system of appointments. He knows that an overly
liberal expansion or even a democratization of the idea of incarnation
would completely undermine its exclusivity. Appointments and initiations by
a guru are thus basically more important to him, but he would never want to
give up the system as such, which exercises so a bewitching hold over the
western imagination.

His answer to the question of whether
he himself will reincarnate as Dalai Lama once more has for years been the
same statement: “Should the Tibetan people still want a Dalai Lama after my
death then a new Dalai Lama will also come. I shall at any rate not attempt
to influence this decision in any manner. If my people should in the next
years decide to make an end to old traditions, then one must accept that” (Playboy, German edition, March 1998,
p. 44).

We must leave it to the judgment of our
readers how seriously they take such a “democratic” solution to the
question of tradition by the Tibetan Buddhocrats. That the gods bow to the
will of the people is completely new, at least in the history of Tibet. But
at any rate we shall not have to do without the “precious presence”
(Tibetan: Kundun) of His Holiness
in our next incarnations, even if he no longer appears in the form of a
Dalai Lama. At the end of his interview with Playboy which we have already quoted from on a number of
occasions, he gives his readers the following parting thought: “For as long
as the cosmos exists, and as long as there are living creatures, I will be
present here so as to drive out the suffering of the world” (Playboy, German edition, March 1998,
p. 44).

The various orders of Tibetan Buddhism

Three of the four main schools which
determined the religious life of Tibet were all formed in the period from
the 11th to the 14th century: The Sakyapa, the Kagyupa and the
Gelugpa. The Nyingmapa in contrast has been in existence since the start of
the ninth century. All four “sects” are still today the most important
pillars of tantric culture. It was the ingenious work of the “Great Fifth”
to like an alchemist distill the spiritual and political essence out of all
the traditional orders and to impressively assimilate these into his institution
as “Dalai Lama” — a power-political act, which is currently being repeated
by his incarnation, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

The Gelugpa order

The “Great Fifth” came from the Gelugpa
order. Of all the Tibetan schools the so-called “Yellow Hats” were the most
tightly organized. Their founder, the outstanding scholar Tsongkhapa
(1357–1419), had begun with a moral campaign against the decline of the
teaching and the dissolution in the monasteries. He forbade the consumption
of intoxicating liquors, demanded the strict observance of celibacy,
insisted upon a rigorous work discipline, improved the dress code and
reformed the daily liturgy. Towards the end of his life he succeeded in
arresting the general decadence in the various schools through the establishment
of a new order. In keeping with his program, this was called Gelugpa, that is, “Followers of the
path of virtue”. Although there were precursors, in the final instance
Tibetan Buddhism has the “virtuous” to thank for its Buddhocratic/clerical
structure. The three “most scholarly” monasteries of the highlands belong
to the “yellow church”: Ganden, Drepung, and Sera. These “three jewels” of
the spirit accommodated thousands of monks over centuries and were
considered the most powerful religious and political institutions in the
country alongside the Potala, the residence of the Dalai Lama, and Tashi
Lhunpo, the seat of the Panchen Lama.

Like no other school, the “Yellow Hats”
can be talked about as being scholastic. They possessed the best libraries,
the best educational system, the most stringent training program. What they
lacked was the fantasy and the often picturesque wildness of the other
orders. The Gelugpas have not produced a single original work, but saw
their mission rather as solely to study the already codified Buddhist
texts, to prepare commentaries on these, and, in most cases, to learn them
by heart. Even the sixteen volumes of Tsongkhapa’s writings are
commentaries upon the canonized literature found in the Kanjur ("translations of the word”
of Buddha) and the Tanjur
("translation of the textbooks”). The strength of the Gelugpas thus
lay not in their creativity, but rather in their superior political and
organizational talents which they combined with the teachings of the
tantras in an extremely effective manner. Despite his “puritanical”
politics which earned him the title of the Tibetan Luther, Tsongkhapa was
an outstanding expert in and commentator upon the tantric secret writings,
especially the Kalachakra teachings.
His pupils continued this tradition with extensive works of their own. This
made the Gelugpa order a stronghold of the Time Tantra.

Tsongkhapa was “puritanical” only in
the sense that he demanded absolute discipline and iron-clad rules in the
performance of the sexual magic rites and in determining that they could
only be conducted by celibate monks. Although he became an object of
emotional reverence after his death, because of their precision and
systematicity his commentaries upon the sacred love techniques seem especially
cold and calculating. They are probably only the product of his
imagination, then he himself is supposed to have never practiced with a
real karma mudra (wisdom consort)
— yet he wrote extensively about this. He saw in the tantric exercises an
extremely dangerous but also highly effective practice which ought only be
conducted by a tiny clerical elite after traversing a lengthy and laborious
graduated path. The broad mass of the monks thus fell further and further
behind in the course of the academic and subsequent tantric training,
eventually forming the extensive and humble “lower ranks”.

It lay — and still lies — in the logic
of the Gelugpa system to produce a small minority of intensively schooled
scholars and an even smaller number of tantric adepts, whose energies are
in the end gathered together in a single individual. The entire monastic
“factory” is thus, in the final instance, geared to the production of a
single omnipotent Buddhist deity in human form. In accordance with the
metapolitical intentions of the Kalachakra
teachings which, being its highest tantra, form the main pillar of the
Gelugpa order, it must be the time god himself who rules the world as a
patriarchal Chakravartin in the
figure of the Dalai Lama. In the final instance, he is the ADI BUDDHA.

Although the institution of the Dalai Lama did not yet exist when the
Gelugpa order was founded, its essence was already in place. Hence the
“virtuous” built the “Asian Rome” (Lhasa) step by step, with the “yellow
pontiff” (the Kundun) at its
head. Thanks to their organizational talents they soon controlled the
majority of central Asia. From the banks of the Volga and the Amur, from
the broad steppes of inner Asia to the Siberian tundra, from the oases of
the Tarim Basin, from the imperial city of Beijing, from the far Indian
river valleys came streams of pilgrims, envoys, and tributary gifts to the
god-king in Lhasa. Even his opponents recognized him as a spiritual force
towering over all.

The Kagyupa order

Whilst the Gelugpas began cooperating
with the Mongolians very early on and regarded these as their protective
power, we can more or less call the Kagyupas, with the Karmapa at their
head, the national Tibetan forces (at least up until the 17th
century). The first Dalai Lama was already caught up in military skirmishes
with the “Red Hats” (Kagyupa). 150 years later and with the support of
Prince Tsangpa, they had extended their power so far that the Gelugpas had
good reason to fear for their lives and possessions. In the 1730s Tsangpa seized
Lhasa and handed the holy temple, the Jokhang, over to the priests of the
“Reds”. Even the powerful Gelugpa monastery of Drepung fell to his
onslaught. In the course of these battles an unsuccessful assassination
attempt on the Fifth Dalai Lama is said to have been carried out. In his
stead, however, his biological mother was murdered.

In his hour of need the “Great Fifth”
succeeded in forming an alliance with Gushri Khan (1582–1654), the chief of
the Oirat Mongols. The Khan descended upon the “Land of Snows” with a force
tens of thousands strong. A bloody “civil war” ensued, in which two
admittedly worldly rulers, the king of the Tsang and Gushri Khan, faced one
another on the open field, but behind whom, however, were hidden the real
forces of the two most powerful monastic hierarchs in the country, the
“Dalai Lama” and the “Karmapa”, the most influential religious leader
within the circle of the Red Hats.

This civil war concerned more than
worldly power. According to the tantric obsessions which drove both
parties, the battle was for the world throne and control over the spirit of
the times. (The “Red Hats” also practiced the Kalachakra Tantra.) During the conflict, the Dalai Lama visited
the Ganden monastery and there above an altar saw the huge, grinning, and
black face of a demon with many human heads flying into its gaping maw. He
interpreted this vision as signaling final victory over the Kagyupas.

In accord with the laws of his
ancestors, Gushri Khan intervened with ruthless violence. Through him, the
interior of Tibet was, according to one of the “Red’s” documents, “turned
into a land of hungry ghosts, like the Domains of the Lord of Death” (Bell,
1994, p. 125). We recall that as a incarnation of Avalokiteshvara the Dalai Lama also represents the god of
death, Yama.

The Mongol ordered that the leaders of
the opposing force be sewn into fur sacks and drowned. In the year 1642,
after much fierce resistance, the red order was finally defeated. Many
Kagyupas were driven from their monasteries which were then turned into
Yellow Hat sites, as had been the case in reverse before. A mass flight was
the result. Sections of the defeated Red Hats emigrated to Sikkim and to
Bhutan and joined forces with the local dynasties there.

Yet, being an intelligent despot the
“Great Fifth” did not give in to a desire for revenge. He knew from history
that the various Kagyupa factions did not form a united front. Hence, after
his control had been secured he covered some of them with great honors,
thus splitting their ranks. But he even went a step further. Namely, he
invaded the mysteries of the Red Hats by taking over from them the
“national” Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara
(Chenrezi), as his personal
incarnation god. This usurpation was — as we have already shown — a
political master stroke.

The Nyingmapa order

Because of his wild lifestyle, the
founder of the Nyingmapa, the half-mythic yogi and magician, Padmasambhava
(Guru Rinpoche), was thought to be a dubious character by the Gelugpas.
Even today, the name “Guru Rinpoche” provokes strong defensive reactions
among some “Yellow Hats”. But the Fifth Dalai Lama adopted a completely
different attitude in this case. Not only did he indicate that
Padmasambhava was, as an emanation of Avalokiteshvara,
an earlier incarnation of his, but he also felt himself to be almost
magnetically attracted to the tantric practices which Guru Rinpoche had
employed to gain control over the Land of Snows. The achievements of the
king, Songtsen Gampo, in the military political domain are outstripped by
those of Guru Rinpoche on a metapolitical/magical level. We shall return
later to discuss the unconventional yogi’s deeds of conquest in detail.

Padmasambhava (eighth century) is the
founding hero and the icon of the Nyingmapas, the oldest of the Buddhist
schools. They elevated the sorcerer (Siddha)
to such a high status that he was sometimes even ranked higher than the
historical Buddha. Although the “Old”, as the Nyingmapas are known, had the
patina of the original about them (they were the first), over the course of
the centuries they nevertheless managed to draw the worst reputation of all
upon themselves. As wandering beggars, unkempt and restless, they roamed
Tibet, were considered licentious in sexual matters, and supplemented their
alms through the sale of all manner of dubious magical pieces. The
depravity and anarchy they cultivated, through which they expressed their
contempt for the world (of samsara),
nevertheless fostered their reputation as powerful magicians among the
superstitious populace. In general they were not unpopular with ordinary
people because (unlike the tightly organized monasteries of the other
sects) they rarely demanded taxes or forced labor.

Their attitude towards the pre-Buddhist
Bon cult and remnants of ancient shamanism was extremely relaxed, so that
many unorthodox elements flowed into the religious practices of the
Nyingmapa. For example, alongside the classic tantras they practiced the
so-called Dzogchen method in
which enlightenment can be achieved without lengthy preparations and graded
progression. Sometimes they were mocked as vagrants, at others they were
feared as powerful sorcerers. But it was above all the strict and
“puritanical” Gelugpas who punished the “Old” with detestation and great
contempt.

Here too, the “Great Fifth” felt and
acted at complete odds to the dominant opinion among his own order. His own
teacher had been an important Nyingmapa and he had been informed about
their “heretical” writings in great detail. With great success he put to
use the terma doctrine
(concerning the discovery of old mystic texts) fostered in this school. But
above all his especial interest was captured by the magic practices of the
order, and Golden Manuscript
which he wrote is an ingenious compendium of barbaric spells such as are
taught by the Nyingmapas.

The Sakyapa Order

The “Great Fifth” learned his grand
politics and the subtleties of diplomacy from the Sakyapas who, as powerful
ecclesiastical princes, had cooperated with the Mongolians and the Chinese
between the 12th and 14th century.

Like every school of Tibetan Buddhism,
the Sakyapas were also tantric ritualists. 150 years after the founding of the
first monastery (in 1073) the order had developed into one of the most
influential institutions in Tibet at that time. Within it the foundations
were laid for a “modern political science” which welded together the
administration of state and international relations, transpersonal energy
fields (the Tibetan “gods”) and the sexual magic ritual system into a
single discipline — a combination which exerted a lifelong attraction over
the Fifth Dalai Lama.

According to legend, one of the most
important abbots of the monastery, the influential Sakya Pandita
(1182–1251), is said to have been in correspondence with Genghis Khan. All
that has been historically verified, however, is that almost two decades
after the death of the great military leader, in the year 1244, he traveled
to Mongolia so as to successfully establish Buddhism there as the state
religion. In gratitude, Godan Khan appointed him vice regent of the Land of
Snows.

This historic alliance was so important
to the “Great Fifth” who lived 400 years later that he without ado declared
himself to be an incarnation of Sakya Pandita’s nephew and successor, the
similarly gifted statesman, Phagspa Lama (1235-1280). The latter’s meeting
with Kublai Khan (1260–1294) shortly before the Mongol prince seized the Chinese
throne was legendary. The future Emperor was so impressed by the knowledge
and rhetoric of the lama that he adopted the Buddhist faith and even let
himself be initiated into the Hevajra
Tantra.

The “Great Fifth” correctly saw this
historical encounter as a corner-stone of world politics which dovetailed
perfectly into the foundations of his own global vision. He hence simply
declared the conversations between himself and the Mongolian potentate,
Gushri Khan, which took place in the year 1637 and which concerned the
defeat of the Kagyupa order, to be the “incarnatory” continuation of the
dialog which commenced in 1276 between Kublai Khan and the then powerful
Phagspa Lama and continued afresh in the year 1578 between the Third Dalai
Lama and Altan Khan. During the meeting with the god-king (the Fifth Dalai
Lama), Gushri Khan is supposed to have recalled their previous joint
“incarnation meetings” (as Kublai Khan and Phagspa Lama and as the Third
Dalai Lama and Altan Khan). This example shows, how politics was conducted
across the centuries. Death no longer played a role in these political
events which were so important for Asia.

The Jonangpa order

The no longer extant school (up until
the 17th century) of the Jonangpas was a small but powerful offshoot
of the Sakyapa order. During the “civil war” between the Gelugpas and the
Kagyupas its followers allied themselves with the king of the Tsang (the
“Red Hat” alliance). They were therefore branded as heretics by the “Great
Fifth” and de facto destroyed.
This is all the more surprising since an abbot of the school, the famous
historian Taranatha (1575–1634), was asked by the parents of the Fifth
Dalai Lama to name their child. However, it demonstrates once more the
unsentimental, uncompromising manner in which the god-king pursued his
political goals. He ordered that the printing plates of the sect (i.e.,
their writings) be sealed and incorporated the order’s funds along with the
majority of its monks into the Gelugpa system. It is of interest that at
that stage this school was the prime specialist in matters concerning the Kalachakra Tantra, to which
Taranatha also devoted a number of writings. Perhaps a cause for the
conflict can also be found here, then there can be no doubt that the “Great
Fifth” took the cosmic power system of the Time Tantra literally and laid
exclusive claim to it.

The Bon religion

The eclectic on the Lion Throne (the
Fifth Dalai Lama) was also not at all ill-disposed towards the pre-Buddhist
Bon religion. Avalokiteshvara
appeared to him in a vision and called upon him “to invite Bonpos often to
carry out rituals which ensure the prosperity of the country.” (Karmay,
1988, p. 64). This liaison is not quite as paradoxical as it may appear at
first glance. Admittedly, the Bon priests had been fiercely persecuted as
the exact opposite of Buddhism since time immemorial- over the centuries
they had been reviled as the practitioners of black magic, the sacrificers
of animals, the worshippers of demons. This negative Tibetan evaluation has
been shared by many western researchers up until of late. However, more
recent studies have shown that the Bon religion was closer to Buddhism than
was previously thought. It is not — as is often erroneously believed — the
original, shamanist religion of the highlands.

Bon
– Dharmapala (Yeshe Walmo)

Just like the Indian Buddhist gurus at
a later time, the first Bonpos were brought into the country (in the sixth
century, probably from Persia). They brought with them a marked doctrine of
light unknown in Tibet, which is reminiscent of the Amitabha cult. They worshipped Shen Rab, a supernatural being who exhibits many of the
criteria of an Avalokiteshvara,
as a messianic savior. The Bon also believed in the existence of an
inaccessible mythical kingdom, Olmolungring,
which shares essential traits with Shambhala.
The doctrine of emanation was likewise as familiar to them as a
well-organized priesthood. They were even well versed in tantric practices
and other yoga doctrines. The Tibetan lama Namkhai Norbu suspected that the
famous Dzogchen meditation practice, through which enlightenment can be
reached directly without intermediary stages, could be traced back to them.
Both religions (that of the Buddhists and that of the Bonpos) worship the
swastika as a cult symbol, but the widespread belief that the Bon followers
only used the left-armed “evil” hooked cross and the Buddhist Tantrics the
right-armed “good” one as a symbol is untrue.

Since the Bon religion was able to
continue to exist following the Buddhization of the Land of Snows (since
the seventh century) despite extreme persecution, the historians have until
now assumed that it took on many Buddhist elements so as to protect itself
from pursuit. This is sure to have been the case here and there. But, it is
becoming ever clearer on the basis of newly discovered documents that the
original Bon cult possessed “Buddhist” elements from the outset, indeed,
some important authors — such as David Snellgrove for example — even talk
of a “heterodox” Buddha doctrine which penetrated the highlands via Persia
and united with the local shamanist religion there. Where there is a real
difference is in the approval of animal and occasional human sacrifices in
the Bon cult. But then even this is supposed to be not entirely foreign to
the tantric rites. There was thus no need for the “Great Fifth” to fear
contact with the religion of the “black hat magicians”, as the Bonpo are
sometimes called. His own system could only be strengthened through their
“integration”.

Through his politics of integration the
Fifth Dalai Lama demonstratively revealed that he saw himself as the ruler
of all sects and all Tibetans, and that he was not striving to achieve
absolute hegemony for the “yellow order” (the Gelugpas), but rather the
unrestricted sovereignty of his own institution. Where the “Yellow Hats”
were always wanting that the other schools be reduced to second or
third-order powers; the Fifth Dalai Lama in contrast aspired to a situation
where all schools equally bowed down before him as the supreme tantra
master. Tensions with his own order were also preordained for another
reason. Traditionally, the Gelugpas supplied the regent to the god-king
who, once the “living Buddha” (Kundun)
attained his majority, had to abdicate and renounce his power.

Let us summarize once more: It was the
“Great Fifth”’s political intention to establish a Buddhocratic system in
Tibet with the institution of the Dalai Lama at its helm. To achieve this
he required all the material and spiritual resources of the country. From
the Gelugpas he took the discipline, organizational talent, administrative
skill, reasons of state, and learning; from the Kagyupas the doctrine of
incarnation, his incarnation god Avalokiteshvara,
and his national roots; from the Nyingmapas the ritual magic; from the
Sakyapas the diplomatic skill; from the Jonangpas a well-organized Kalachakra system; and from the
Bonpos the support of those ecclesiastical forces which had primarily
propagated the idea of the ancient, sacred kingship, an idea which was
vital for the establishment of the world throne on the Potala.

According to the laws of the
micro/macrocosmic conceptual world in which the Fifth Dalai Lama lived, he
must have seen in his power politics a symbolic act which encompassed the
entire cosmos: Once he had achieved absolute control over the Land of Snows
(the microcosm), then, homologously, as Chakravartin
he also had power over the whole world (the macrocosm). He ingeniously
understood how to bundle together all the spiritual energies of the country
within his person and the institution of the Dalai Lama which he occupied.
He collected the most potent extracts from schools of every orientation and
mixed them together in his magic cauldron into a potion of power, the
consumption of which was supposed to grant him control over the universe.

Through his political application of
the doctrine of incarnation, the fifth Kundun
could with aplomb draw upon all the important political figures of Tibetan
history and employed these as marionettes in his cosmic theaters. He made
the tantric idea the driving force of his age . It was not him as a person,
but rather the gods he invoked, especially Avalokiteshvara and Kalachakra,
the time god, who were the organizing principle, the creative, the one true
thing, the ADI BUDDHA.

Unification of the Tibetan Buddhist orders under the absolute
reign of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

It is almost uncanny how exactly the
Fourteenth Dalai Lama has continued and intensified the integrative
politics of his ingenious, unscrupulous, and highly revered predecessor
from the 17th century which was aimed at strengthening his own
position of power, only this time truly on a global scale. It is primarily
the Kalachakra Tantra which
serves as his most effective means of bringing the various sects into line.
In the meantime each of the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism is
committed to the Time Tantra and offers small scale Kalachakra initiations all around the world. On the official Kalachakrahomepage in the Internet (www.kalachakra.com),
the following “Dharma masters” are presented with photos as the most
prominent contemporary “WARRIORS” of the time wheel:

1.Dalai Lama (Gelugpa)

2.Gelek Rinpoche (Gelugpa)

3.Chögyam Trungpa (Kagyupa)

4.Namkhai Norbu (Nyingmapa)

5.Jamgon Kongtrul (Kagyupa)

6.Minling Terchen Rinpoche (Nyingmapa)

7.Sharmapa Rinpoche (Kagyupa)

8.Tai Situ Rinpoche (Kagyupa)

9.Thrangu Rinpoche (Kagyupa)

10.Tsem Tulku (Gelugpa)

11.Zurman Garwang Rinpoche (Kagyupa)

12.Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche (Nyingmapa)

13.Sakya Trizin (Sakyapa)

14.Dzongsar Khyentse (Nyingmapa)

15.Sogyal Rinpoche (Rime Tradition)

16.Tulku Urgyen (Nyingmapa)

17.Gelek Rinpoche (Gelugpa)

18.Kalsang Rinpoche (Kagyupa)

19.Nan Huai Chin (Kagyupa and Chan)

20.Rev Shen Yan (?)

21.Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (Bon)

22.Thrinly Norbu Rinpoche (Nyingmapa)

23.Tsoknyi Rinpoche (Kagyupa)

24.Lama Choedak (Sakyapa)

25.Ani Choying Drohna (Arya Tara
School)

It is immediately apparent from this
summary that of the 25 high lamas who publicly represent the Kalachakra Tantra, there is only
four Gelugpa masters. This is astounding indeed.

His unique exiled situation allows the
fourteenth Kundun to set himself
up as the head of all the schools even more than the “Great Fifth”. This is
not just true on the level of practical politics as head of state, but also
in the initiatory system. Hence His Holiness allowed himself to be
initiated into all the significant lineages of the various sects. In 1986 a
Nyingmapa teacher initiated him into his tradition. His Holiness also received
a tantric initiation at the hands of the highest master of the Sakyapa
sect. It was a Nyingmapa lama, Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche, who in 1994 presided
over the erection of the first, thirteen-meter high Kalachakra stupa in the West (in Spain).

Traditionally, the Gelugpas were the
only ones who had any real influence on the affairs of state — primarily
through the position of the “regents”, who were selected from their ranks
and conducted the business of state until the Dalai Lamas came of age. In
the face of a superior Kundun,
the “Yellow Hats”are now set on the same level as the other sects. Their
privileges have disappeared. „Today the activities of His Holiness the
Dalai Lama serve the whole world and all of Tibetan Buddhism as well as the
indigenous Bön faith impartially”, an official statement from Dharamsala
says, „The inclinations of the Gelug monasteries to continue to link
themselves with the government, even administratively, causes damage and
obstacles rather than benefit and support for His Holiness and the exile
government” (Tibetan Review, July
1994, p. 12).

The god-king’s claim to spiritually and
politically represent all sects has, just as in the past with the “Great
Fifth”, in recent times led to a spirited protest movement amidst the ranks
of his own order (Gelugpa), whose power is reduced by this. From this wing,
the Kundun is accused of creating
a “religious hotchpotch” or his personal ambitions are even openly
designated. “According to my understanding”, writes Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, a
bitter opponent of the god-king from his own ranks (he is an ordained
Gelugpa monk), “ the Dalai Lama's main wish is to integrate the four
Tibetan traditions into one. The leaders of the other traditions will
gradually disappear, leaving him alone as head of Tibetan Buddhism. In this
way he will be able to control all aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. In the
beginning this plan was rejected by the leaders of Sakya, Kagyu and Nyingma
Traditions, while the Gelugpa remained neutral. Later, the Dalai Lama changed
his approach. He is now trying to destroy the practice of Dorje Shugden and change the Gelug
tradition, while at the same time developing a close relationship with the
other traditions, especially the Nyingmapa. Gradually he hopes to fulfill
his wishes in this way” (Gyatso, Newsgroup 7).

According to Kelsang Gyatso, the Kundun is supposed to have held a
number of meetings with the head abbots of the four main schools in the
early 1960s at which he proposed uniting the sects under his leadership.
This proposal was rejected. The Sakyapa, Kagyupa, and Nyingmapa then joined
together in 13 exile-Tibetan establishments so as to protect themselves
from the imposition of the Dalai Lama’s will. The leader of all 13,
Gongtang Tsultrim, was murdered under mysterious circumstances. To date the
murder case has still not been solved (Sky Warrior, Newsgroup 18).

It has in the meantime become
established practice that for all incarnations of great lamas, regardless
of sect, the Kundun’s confirmation
is sought as the final word. This was not the case in the past. Free from
any competition, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama outshines all other
hierarchs from the Land of Snows. Even his often abrasive
political/religious rivalry with the pro-China Panchen Lama no longer
exists, since the latter died in 1989.

The Rime
movement, which began in the 19th century and has as its goal a united
church in which all schools are absorbed (retaining certain individual
features), is also a boon to the absolutism of the god-king. Even the Bon
priests in exile have in the meantime recognized the Kundun as their de facto
authority. Like his predecessor from the 17th century (the “Great Fifth”),
he maintains good contacts with them and prays in their monasteries.

“The Dalai Lama”, one of his Buddhist
opponents polemicizes, “tries to teach everything: Kagyu, Nyingma, Sakya,
Gelugpa, Bonpo, and recently he even gave teachings on Christianity! Later
may be he will teach on Sufism, Hinduism, Shamanism and so on. What is his
motivation here? It is clear to me that his motivation is to gather as many
disciples as possible from all these different traditions. In this way he
will become their root guru and thereby gain more power and control” (Sky
Warrior, Newsgroup 18). Hence, his followers celebrate him not just as the
“supreme spiritual and worldly leader of six million Tibetans”, but
likewise as the “Head of Buddhists World Wide” (Ron, Newsgroup 14). In a
resolution of the Tibetan Cholsum
Convention, of which representatives from all (!) organizations of
Tibetans in exile are members and which was held from August 27 to 31,
1998, it says: “He [The Dalai Lama] is the Captain of Peace in the world;
he is the overall head of all Buddhist traditions on this earth; he is the
master acclaimed by all the religious traditions of the world”.

The “Karmapa affair”

A spectacular example of how the Kundun is able to turn the divisions
within the other sects to his advantage is offered by the so-called “Karmapa
affair”. The turbulent events played out between various factions within
the Kagyupa sect since the start of the nineties have included radical
confrontations and court cases, violent brawls and accusations and
counter-accusations of murder.

The cause of this un-Buddhist
disagreement was that in the search for the 17th incarnation of
the new Karmapa, the leader of the Kagyupa, two principal candidates and
their proponents confronted one another — on the one side, Situ Rinpoche
and Gyaltsab Rinpoche, who advocated a youth in Tibet, on the other, Shamar
Rinpoche, who proposed a boy in India. Shortly before the decision, a third
abbot, Jamgon Kongtrol Rinpoche, whose voice would have been very
influential in the choice, was the victim of a mysterious fatal car
accident. Shortly afterwards, the remaining parties accused one another of
having brought about the death of Jamgon Kongtrol via magical manipulation.
Brawls between the two monastic factions and bloody heads resulted in
India, shots were even exchanged, so that the Indian police were forced to
intervene (Nesterenko, 1992).

Situ Rinpoche advocated a Sino-Tibetan
boy (Urgyen Trinley) as his Karmapa candidate, who also had the support of
the Kundun and the Tibetan
government in exile. Shamar Rinpoche, however, presented his own Karmapa
(Thaye Dorje) to the public in Delhi on March 17, 1994. Since that time a
great rift has divided the Kagyupa lineage, affecting the numerous groups
of western believers as well. Superficially, one could gain the impression
that Situ Rinpoche represented the Asian, and Shamar Rinpoche the
Euro-American segment of the Red Hat followers. However, closer inspection
proves this to be an erroneous picture, then Shamar Rinpoche has
established a notable power base in the kingdom of Bhutan and Situ Rinpoche
also has many supporters for his candidate in the West. There are no small
number of groups who would like to mediate between the two rivals. But one
knows full well what is at stake for the Kagyupa lineage in this fundamental
difference. At the end of an open letter by “neutral” Red Hat abbots is to
read, that if the differences continue then it is certain that no side will
emerge as the 'winner' or the 'loser'. The sole loser will be the Karmapa
Kagyupa lineage as a whole (Tibetan
Review, October 1993, p. 8).

But this split among the Kagyupa is
useful for the Dalai Lama. Since the dawn of Tibetan history the Karmapa
has been the main opponent of the Kundun
and has already been involved in military conflicts with Lhasa on several
occasions. He was his major enemy in the Tibetan civil war described above.

This rivalry did not end with the
flight of both hierarchs from Tibet. From the outset (since the end of the
sixties) the Kagyupa sect have been incomparably more popular in the West
than the orthodox Yellow Hats: the Red Hats were considered to be young,
dynamic, uncomplicated, informal, and cosmopolitan. The unconventional
appearances of the Kagyu tulku, Chögyam Trungpa, who in the seventies
completely identified himself with the artistic avant-garde of Europe and
America also set an example for many other masters of the sect. Up until
the mid-eighties, Western pupils of Buddhism in any case preferred the red
order. Here, in their view, an autonomous counterforce, independent of
rigid traditions, was emerging, at least this was how the Kagyupas
outwardly presented themselves. They developed into a powerful opponent of
the Gelugpa, who likewise attempted to attract proselytes in the West.
Among others, this would be one of the reasons why the Kundun allied himself with “detested” China in supporting Situ
Rinpoche’s candidate, Ugyen Trinley,
who is resident in the Tsurphu monastery on Chinese territory.

But in the meantime the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama has succeeded in binding the Kagyupa (Situ and Gyaltsab
lineages) so strongly to himself that it seemed more sensible to place the
young Karmapa under his direct control. At first, Ugyen Trinley appeared to
function completely as the Chinese intended. In October 1995, the former
nomadic boy was the guest of honor during the national holiday celebrations
in Beijing and conversed with important Chinese government leaders. The
national press corps reported at length on his subsequent journey through
China, organized for the young hierarch with much pomp and circumstance. He
is supposed to have exclaimed “Long live the People’s Republic of China!”

It is noteworthy that Beijing is attempting
less and less to explain the history and basic doctrines of Tibetan
Buddhism and is instead deliberately and with more or less success
establishing and encouraging a “competing Lamaism” or “alternative Lamaism”
directed against the politics of the Dalai Lama. The most powerful
incarnation supported by China is undoubtedly the young Eleventh Panchen
Lama, about whom we will come to report later. On January 17, 2000, the South China Morning Post reported
that the Chinese had discovered a reincarnation of Reting Rinpoche who had
died in February 1997. The two-year-old boy was given a Buddhist name and
ordained in front oof a staute in the Jokhang Temple (in Lhasa). The
ceremony took place in the presence of Chinese party officials. Reting
Rinpoche is considered to be one of the few lamas who in the event of the
Dalai Lama’s death could assume the regency until his reincarnation came of
age. It is obvious that the “China-friendly Lamaism” is setting a
completely new tone in the relationship between the two powers (China and
the Tibetans in exile).

China is waiting for the charismatic
leader to die, and the Dalai Lama has had to think seriously about the
issue of succession, not just of his own reincarnation, but also the
individual who as regent will represent his state and religion whilst he is
still a minor. The successful and purposeful policy of integration which
the Kundun has been pursuing for years within the context of the individual
schools makes it possible that upon his death a Kagyupa hierarch could also
take on the task of representing all the sects just as the chief of the
Gelugpas (the Dalai Lama) de facto does. At any rate these are speculations
being discussed in the Western press. Time
Magazine says of Ugyen Trinley, “He has the potential to become a
leading figure for the next generation, just as the Dalai Lama is for the
current one. … What counts today is one who embodies the Tibetan religious
identity and the national claims – and can be a focus for Western sympathy.
If the Karmapa continues to show the courage and charisma which he has
shown up until now, then he could make an excellent symbol of the
resistance to the occupation of Tibet by China” (January 24, 1999;
retranslation).

The current incarnation issue bring the
undisguised power interests of all involved out into the light of day. [8]
And these have a long tradition. For example, the power political
competition between the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and the Sixteenth Karmapa is
the reason why the rumor has persisted in western Kagyupa circles that the Kundun used magic practices to
murder the Karmapa (Tibetan Review,
August 1987, p. 21).

This “accusation of murder” calls to
mind not just the Tibetan civil war but also another mysterious incident.
After the death of the Fifteenth Karmapa (in 1922), a powerful Gelugpa
minister wanted to push through the recognition of his own son as the next
incarnation of the Kagyupa hierarch against the will of the Red Hats. This
autocratic decision was ratified by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the monks
of the Tsurphu monastery were forced against their will to accept the
Yellow Hats’ boy. But it did not take long before the child inexplicably
fell to his death from the roof of a building. There was never an
explanation of the “accident”, at any rate it was of benefit to the genuine
candidate of the Red Hats, who was now recognized as the Sixteenth Karmapa.

Incidentally, the official chronicles
of the Gelugpas accuse the tenth incarnation of Shamar Rinpoche, of having
incited the Nepalese to war against Lhasa in the 18th century. Thereupon
his assets were either seized or razed to the ground. A subsequent
reincarnation of the great abbot was not accepted by the Yellow Hats. „Merit was
becoming less and less!”, the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa has commented upon
this period. „There was much political interference. Black was becoming
white. The real was becoming unreal. At that time it was not practicable to
have any Sharmapa recognized or enthroned. Everything was kept secret”
(Nesterenko, 1992, p. 8).Not until the year 1964, following a
lengthy meditation and on the basis of dreams, did the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama permit the official reinstatement of the Shamarpa lineage. The Kundun should have known that
according to his own doctrine history repeats itself and that old conflicts
do not just flare up afresh, rather, the laws governing incarnation
determine that time and again the same individuals stand opposed to one
another (in this case the Shamarpa versus
the Dalai Lama).

Accordingly the relations between the
god-king and the Nepalese are very tense once again. Nepal has over many
years established good contacts with its neighbor, China, and currently
(1998) has a “communist” government. Tibetan refugees are constantly
expelled from the country. In the past there were several armed conflicts
between the Royal Nepalese Army and Tibetan underground fighters (ChuShi
GangDrug).

Accusations against The Dalai Lama and
the Gelugpas of imposing their will upon the “red sect” (the Kagyupa) and
attempting to split them are also heard from government circles in the
kingdom of Bhutan. The so-called “Switzerland of the Himalayas” and its
ruling house (who today are in cooperation with the Shamarpa) traditionally
belong to the Kagyupa school, and have therefore had in part very serious
disputes with Lhasa for hundreds of years. The Yellow Hat monasteries and
their abbots, which have been tolerated in the country as refugee
settlements since the sixties, are accused by the Bhutanese of nothing less
serious than the politically motivated murder of the Prime Minister, Jigme
Dorji, (in 1964) and a long-planned revolt in order to seize control of the
country.

In
this, the “Yellow Hats” are supposed to have attempted to liquidate the
Bhutanese heir to the throne. Alongside one of the king’s mistresses who
was under the influence of the Gelugpas, the Dalai Lama’s brother, Gyalo
Thondrup, is also supposed to be involved in this assassination attempt,
discovered before it could be carried through. In the light of such accusations
it is immediately apparent why the Bhutanese have backed Shamar Rinpoche’s
decision in the dispute about the new Karmapa, and reject Ugyen Trinley,
the candidate of Situ Rinpoche ratified by Dharamsala, as a marionette of
the Dalai Lama.

Footnotes:

[1] We are obviously dealing with a
Buddhaization of a Vedic myth of origin here, according to which the
universe arose from the self-dismemberment of the first human, Prajapati.

[2] The philosophers and
theologists of the European Middle Ages developed a “two body theory” of
sacred kingship. The scholars drew a distinction between the mortal and
mundane body of a king and an eternal royal meta-body.This was fundamentally independent of its
human appearance.After the death of
the body which had served as his residence he withdrew from this so as to
then be reincarnated in the succesor of the old king. This model
corresponds broadly with the Tibetan Buddhist doctrine of incarnation.

[3] The mchod-yon relation to China is also interpreted as the relation
pertaining between the sun and the moon by the Lamaist side.Hence we can read in a text from the 17th
century that the potentates from Beijing and Lhasa stood opposed to one
another as sun and moon, where the Dalai Lama occupied the throne of the
sun (Klieger,1991, p. 45).As the
moon the feminine and thus subordinate role is assigned to the Emperor in
this classification.

[4] In the Tibetan Review, the public relations advertisement for the
West, even the shallow dualism „Tibet — good and China — bad” is seen as a
problem in one article: „Tibet is the embodiment of the powers of the holy;
China is the embodiment of the powers of the demonic; Tibetans are
superhuman, Chinese are subhuman. In this Orientalist logic of oppositions,
China must be debased in order for Tibet to be exalted; in order for there
to be a spiritual and enlightened Orient, there must be a demonic and
despotic Orient „ (Tibetan Review,
May 1994, p. 18).

[5] Following the Dalai Lama the
second highest authority in the Gelugpa sect.

[6] Sera is the monastery to which
the regent belonged.

[7] As we have already mentioned,
such “treasures” (terma) are
understood to be secret doctrines hidden by dakinis or the “founder of the
religion”, Padmasambhava. Many years later they are discovered by chosen
individuals and then put into practice.

[8] Tangible material interests
also play their role in the “Karmapa affair”.The assets of the Rumtek monastery, the
main western monastery of the Karmapa, are being claimed by Dharamsala
(i.e., by the Kundun) because it
is an object of contention between Situ and Shamar Rinpoche who both lay
claim to the monastery for their respective candidates.

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